WEBVTT

1
00:00:07.160 --> 00:00:12.480
Hello everybody, and welcome to another
episode of Modern Outdoor Survival. And this

2
00:00:12.519 --> 00:00:18.079
time we have slightly poor audio quality
than normal because we're in a cottage somewhere

3
00:00:18.079 --> 00:00:21.320
in the western Highlands of Scotland,
and I didn't want to bring the whole

4
00:00:21.359 --> 00:00:24.519
audio kit with me, so I'm
afraid you're going to have to make do

5
00:00:24.679 --> 00:00:30.480
with a combination of phones and a
small pocket recording device thing and sat around

6
00:00:30.519 --> 00:00:34.200
the table with me. I have
three friends and we've just come back from

7
00:00:34.679 --> 00:00:39.920
a place called Neudart, which is
a peninsula which is about well, it's

8
00:00:39.960 --> 00:00:43.039
an hour away from here to get
to where the boat picks you up from,

9
00:00:43.679 --> 00:00:46.640
and then it's another half hour on
the boat to the peninsula. It

10
00:00:46.719 --> 00:00:51.000
is attached to the British mainland,
but there are antony roads there and once

11
00:00:51.039 --> 00:00:53.280
you leave the village where the boat
drops you off, I think it's another

12
00:00:53.960 --> 00:01:00.320
twenty miles before you hit the nearest
road. So we went there for a

13
00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:04.239
bit of an excursion, some stomping
around in the mountains. It was a

14
00:01:04.319 --> 00:01:15.159
golden opportunity allowed by the gracious generosity
of Dave, whose work managed to get

15
00:01:15.159 --> 00:01:19.000
a holy cottage booked for the right
place at the right time with some extra

16
00:01:19.079 --> 00:01:22.239
days and we could use it as
a base to move up from. And

17
00:01:22.280 --> 00:01:26.400
then some things came together and we
ended up here. So in the spirit

18
00:01:26.439 --> 00:01:33.120
of the podcast, I wanted to
talk about or go through, some of

19
00:01:33.120 --> 00:01:34.400
the things you learned from the trip, some of the decisions you made,

20
00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:37.760
some of the kit you took,
some of the root choices you made,

21
00:01:38.400 --> 00:01:42.920
and what you think the audience can
learn from that, because I think,

22
00:01:42.920 --> 00:01:49.560
as we say, a lot,
you learn more from the mistakes really than

23
00:01:49.560 --> 00:01:53.519
you do from the Fluke successes.
But sometimes the accumulation of all those mistakes

24
00:01:53.519 --> 00:01:57.560
and the learning points ends up in
something actually going well. But you know

25
00:01:57.640 --> 00:02:01.879
it went well because of the choices
you made. So to my left,

26
00:02:01.959 --> 00:02:06.079
and it'll be speaking first, because
we'll have to take it in terms because

27
00:02:06.079 --> 00:02:09.919
of the audio recorder thing we've got. Alistair. Alisair was on the show

28
00:02:12.039 --> 00:02:15.360
about a year and a half ago. I think something like that. You

29
00:02:15.360 --> 00:02:20.120
would talk to Ham and what we're
talking about something, So, Alistair,

30
00:02:20.159 --> 00:02:24.960
what did you take for our trip? What did you learn? What did

31
00:02:24.960 --> 00:02:29.479
I take? In terms of hole? So are we talking or just go

32
00:02:29.560 --> 00:02:35.280
nuts? Go nuts? Okay?
So I was later addition, I would

33
00:02:35.280 --> 00:02:43.680
say to the to the Greek Plans, and I took a fairly lightweight packing

34
00:02:43.719 --> 00:02:50.599
system. I wanted to go as
fairly faster than light as I could based

35
00:02:50.719 --> 00:02:57.719
on initial feelings of what my fitness
was and the terrain that we might be

36
00:02:57.759 --> 00:03:04.240
covering. And from on that I
went a little bit mad by the lightweight

37
00:03:04.280 --> 00:03:10.360
gear. I wanted comfort at night, that was my decision making process.

38
00:03:10.919 --> 00:03:15.639
But during the day I wanted to
to basically be able to move fast,

39
00:03:15.840 --> 00:03:23.159
so I opted for trail runners,
but also conversely are really nice, you

40
00:03:23.199 --> 00:03:30.639
know, eight centimeter thick, higher
value sleeping pad at the other end of

41
00:03:30.080 --> 00:03:37.919
the situation, and then various packing
things. You know, I kind of

42
00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:43.240
I weighed out my gear, sort
of use pat light to help whittle down

43
00:03:43.360 --> 00:03:46.719
things. That's the website. The
website that you can you can input various

44
00:03:46.960 --> 00:03:53.840
gear things to tell your your selections
between sleep gear and cooking gear and so

45
00:03:53.919 --> 00:03:57.719
on. It gives you a lovely
pie chot. We'll put a link to

46
00:03:57.759 --> 00:04:00.240
that in the bio of the podcast. Yes or a will, cause I

47
00:04:00.199 --> 00:04:05.120
won't, so we're doing it well. And then yeah, a lot of

48
00:04:05.159 --> 00:04:10.479
a lot of chats with Rich about
food selection because obviously at that point the

49
00:04:10.560 --> 00:04:14.080
number of days and things were unknown
to me. It was do you want

50
00:04:14.080 --> 00:04:17.279
to come up to Scotland? Yes? Where we go? Not quite all?

51
00:04:17.480 --> 00:04:21.240
NOI art, do we know a
route? No? You need to

52
00:04:21.240 --> 00:04:29.040
eat though, you know? Yes, so I plan meals and my takeaways

53
00:04:29.439 --> 00:04:34.079
post trip are weirdly enough of my
gear selections. I was happy with most

54
00:04:34.160 --> 00:04:40.199
things. There was a broken part
on a set of gators that I wanted

55
00:04:40.240 --> 00:04:43.319
to bring, which caused them to
be left behind, so I was left

56
00:04:43.360 --> 00:04:47.839
with trail running sort of anti rock
little gator things, which proved, you

57
00:04:47.920 --> 00:04:51.439
know, they were admirable in the
situation to go as high as your socks

58
00:04:51.480 --> 00:04:56.879
basically, yes, yes, they're
literally there to stop rocks getting any your

59
00:04:56.879 --> 00:05:00.920
shoes. That's it. They're not. They won't protected, you'll legs racking

60
00:05:00.079 --> 00:05:06.279
or gorse or thistles or anything like
that. So that was an annoyance before

61
00:05:06.319 --> 00:05:10.920
you even left the Airbnb sort of
thing. But by that point they were

62
00:05:10.959 --> 00:05:15.879
already in the bag, so it
was dead weight in the pack. And

63
00:05:15.920 --> 00:05:20.519
then coming back afterwards, I've still
got most of a food bag because I

64
00:05:20.839 --> 00:05:27.120
took far too much food. I
would say those are my two main negatives.

65
00:05:28.279 --> 00:05:32.319
And then but actually on the train. My sort of fears over my

66
00:05:32.439 --> 00:05:38.920
general fitness of doing some of the
steeper, steeper train were unfounded. Actually,

67
00:05:38.920 --> 00:05:44.000
I was quite happy with my overall
fitness, surprised that my sort of

68
00:05:44.360 --> 00:05:48.240
farm fit carried me through quite comfortably. Because you're a farmer on a fairly

69
00:05:48.279 --> 00:05:51.279
steep farm. Soon anything at the
top of the hill you have to do

70
00:05:51.319 --> 00:05:56.040
about a thousand meters of thousand feet
of ascent. Yes, yeah, there

71
00:05:56.079 --> 00:05:59.920
is. There is a lot of
walking involved when I'm not using our gate.

72
00:06:00.199 --> 00:06:01.759
I think I wouldn't fit. You'd
be if you had a second quad,

73
00:06:02.600 --> 00:06:11.319
what I'd be like an arable farmer. Jesus have just switched off.

74
00:06:12.439 --> 00:06:17.000
Sorry guys, Yeah, that's that's
my initial takeaways. I think. You

75
00:06:17.040 --> 00:06:24.160
know. We we originally set out
for what good was it three nights total,

76
00:06:25.279 --> 00:06:30.600
and we ended up doing some replanning
during the route, so I didn't

77
00:06:30.600 --> 00:06:33.240
get to test all my gear as
well as I liked. But happy with

78
00:06:33.399 --> 00:06:40.360
what performed well m hm, so
yeah, and I very much enjoyed it.

79
00:06:40.600 --> 00:06:47.879
Views were spectacular, as they've already
alluded to early, but it's it

80
00:06:47.959 --> 00:06:51.720
was a difficult to find a view
I didn't like. Yes, yes,

81
00:06:51.879 --> 00:06:56.600
very much, so it was.
That's kind of the reason we were there.

82
00:06:56.759 --> 00:07:00.399
Okay, well, thank you for
you for now, thank you turn

83
00:07:00.439 --> 00:07:08.680
the focus onto David now, so
David or Dave generally, it's only my

84
00:07:08.759 --> 00:07:15.240
mother that caused me. David,
so because you've not been on the show

85
00:07:15.279 --> 00:07:20.519
before, No, not not not
this one. Now, I've been a

86
00:07:20.519 --> 00:07:28.600
long term patrol for the show.
And basically, when I mean, this

87
00:07:28.720 --> 00:07:34.600
idea came about because Rich showed me
a rough idea of planning had and I

88
00:07:34.600 --> 00:07:40.279
thought, oh, look, I've
got some worksh do in Scotland and the

89
00:07:41.680 --> 00:07:46.240
it sort of fitted quite honously with
the route you were showing me initially,

90
00:07:46.680 --> 00:07:55.480
and I fancied a weekend a way
doing some hillwalking, and it also happened

91
00:07:55.600 --> 00:08:03.000
really so we invited everyone came up
here. How with you with the anchor

92
00:08:03.040 --> 00:08:03.879
for the whole thing. People kept
saying, you know, going on this

93
00:08:03.920 --> 00:08:11.720
trip, I know Dave's triplet's we
went together. I will pass the blame

94
00:08:11.839 --> 00:08:16.199
entirely onto you for everything wherever possible. That's fine. I've got both shoulders.

95
00:08:16.519 --> 00:08:20.759
I don't mind. So as far
as what I was expecting, I've

96
00:08:20.759 --> 00:08:28.800
got a limited amount of mountaining experience, mostly a little bit of Whales and

97
00:08:28.839 --> 00:08:33.279
a little bit of Lake District,
and I was unprepared for the dramatic scenery

98
00:08:33.679 --> 00:08:41.120
in the Western Highlands, which was
bloody hell. That's quite severe, quite

99
00:08:41.159 --> 00:08:46.840
big and steep. Yes, it's
from c to that goes straight up.

100
00:08:46.399 --> 00:08:52.279
Yeah, it's relentless. Somebody once
said to me that walking in Sodi or

101
00:08:52.320 --> 00:08:56.279
the Lake District or anywhere else in
England and Wales is completely ruined for you

102
00:08:56.360 --> 00:09:01.360
the moment you come to the Western
Highlands or the Caring Horns, because just

103
00:09:01.399 --> 00:09:05.279
after that, that's that's where the
big stuff is, that's what the proper

104
00:09:05.320 --> 00:09:09.039
stuff is. Yes, and it
was I was really catching the boat in

105
00:09:09.159 --> 00:09:18.279
and dawn was starting to break.
You've got that twilight first thing in the

106
00:09:18.320 --> 00:09:22.759
morning, twilight, and you start
seeing these dark shapes, dark sharp shapes

107
00:09:22.840 --> 00:09:28.320
appearing in front of you, like, oh, I didn't quite realize it

108
00:09:28.360 --> 00:09:33.559
was going to be. Is dramatic, it's the best way to describe it.

109
00:09:33.679 --> 00:09:41.759
I mean, it's achingly beautiful and
there's just visit is for to fill

110
00:09:41.799 --> 00:09:48.200
the soul with everything you could ever
want. It's I absolutely love the place

111
00:09:48.399 --> 00:09:52.120
I shall be coming back. It's
given me a taste of for what else

112
00:09:52.159 --> 00:09:58.759
there is definitely so. I think
it's something for our overseas listeners, but

113
00:09:58.840 --> 00:10:03.600
to through those in the in Canada
and the southern Canadian region just below it.

114
00:10:05.080 --> 00:10:09.240
But these these mountains aren't huge by
sort of global standards. They only

115
00:10:09.240 --> 00:10:13.440
go to about three or four thousand
feet above sea level, but you're often

116
00:10:13.559 --> 00:10:16.679
viewing it from sea level. Yes, that's where the roads and the valleys

117
00:10:16.720 --> 00:10:20.039
are. Don't go more than one
hundred meters above sea level. A lot

118
00:10:20.039 --> 00:10:24.879
of the time. Often you're driving
on the coast, so when you see

119
00:10:24.320 --> 00:10:28.000
the summit of the mountain over there, you're looking right up. You're craning

120
00:10:28.039 --> 00:10:31.159
your neck right back to lock the
top. There's no one going up to

121
00:10:31.559 --> 00:10:35.080
five thousand feet and then there's a
peak. It's I'm on the bunt when

122
00:10:35.120 --> 00:10:43.200
you go straight up who which is
very good. My fitness level for what

123
00:10:43.240 --> 00:10:48.559
we were planning wasn't adequate in my
opinion, I'd probably got through it,

124
00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:54.679
but I wouldn't have enjoyed it as
much. I'm certainly the little bit of

125
00:10:54.679 --> 00:11:01.919
walking up done in mountains wasn't good
enough prepper ration for coming up here.

126
00:11:03.600 --> 00:11:07.679
It's just rumless slot of uphills,
but the views at the top are definitely

127
00:11:07.720 --> 00:11:11.159
worth it. It's often trackless as
well, isn't it. Yes, if

128
00:11:11.159 --> 00:11:16.320
you're lucky, you're following a deer
track type thing. It's just case of

129
00:11:16.720 --> 00:11:22.639
that let's pick the the less dangerous
looking roots on that hill, yeah type

130
00:11:22.679 --> 00:11:24.399
thing. Alison and I were doing
a lot about on the second and the

131
00:11:24.399 --> 00:11:26.720
second day we sort of get to
okay, we'll get to this rock and

132
00:11:26.720 --> 00:11:30.879
remember that rock we're standing there,
and go left round up and there,

133
00:11:31.360 --> 00:11:33.960
right round that and left through that, zigzag through that. Oh yeah,

134
00:11:33.080 --> 00:11:37.159
I see, get onto the one
with a point between the square point one.

135
00:11:37.600 --> 00:11:39.720
Yeah. It's like when you look
at the OS map, it's orange,

136
00:11:41.879 --> 00:11:45.399
person, someone that's just solid orange. Just to contour lines are just

137
00:11:45.399 --> 00:11:50.000
so close together. It's it's not
orange map, which is not something you

138
00:11:50.039 --> 00:11:56.679
get in the area from where the
conto lines are infighting the trinciples. There

139
00:11:56.720 --> 00:12:01.639
we go. Yeah, if I
was coming back, I'd do a lot

140
00:12:01.679 --> 00:12:09.279
more more preparation and a lot more
severe hills, especially with what turned out

141
00:12:09.320 --> 00:12:11.679
to be a heavy pack that i'd
been practicing with, which leads on to

142
00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:18.519
when I was taking so a seventy
liter osprey pack. Heaviest items in there

143
00:12:18.559 --> 00:12:26.039
were my tent which is wild Country
Home compact too, which I've got some

144
00:12:26.080 --> 00:12:31.559
new poles because I've broken weekend previously
in the amber zide that lovely little storm,

145
00:12:31.559 --> 00:12:33.960
that happy which you had to get
delivered to my house because it was

146
00:12:33.080 --> 00:12:37.120
more likely to get to the than
the Western Highlands in time. Yes,

147
00:12:37.159 --> 00:12:39.639
So when I spoke to well comforted
them like, oh, we're not sure

148
00:12:39.679 --> 00:12:41.240
if it's going to get to you
in time, so I gave them your

149
00:12:41.279 --> 00:12:46.919
restriction. It turned up next name, which is brilliant. Yeah. But

150
00:12:46.960 --> 00:12:48.639
then I got a message every day
saying have you still got the poles?

151
00:12:48.639 --> 00:12:52.360
Are the poles? Have you packed
the poles? Are the poles in the

152
00:12:52.360 --> 00:12:54.960
truck? The pole? Did the
poles make it to the second vehicle?

153
00:12:54.039 --> 00:13:01.240
I'll be here, And I did
wonder what about it? Yeah, but

154
00:13:01.320 --> 00:13:03.159
I did wonder where the you know, would it be too cruel to just

155
00:13:03.200 --> 00:13:05.639
sort of photoshop them into different places, you know, throw it into a

156
00:13:05.720 --> 00:13:13.240
rubbis dumb a band above the river
which struck down side of the M six.

157
00:13:13.399 --> 00:13:26.039
Yeah, we've got that face.
Yes, So yes. When I

158
00:13:26.080 --> 00:13:30.639
originally planned my pathway, I was
looking at about eight to ten kiloads and

159
00:13:30.679 --> 00:13:35.799
then suddenly it turned as nineteen when
we got here, so I hadn't quite

160
00:13:37.200 --> 00:13:39.399
planned properly for that. I mean, one of the things I managed to

161
00:13:39.399 --> 00:13:43.399
do before is I managed to lose
nearly ten kiloads of weight. That definitely

162
00:13:43.440 --> 00:13:48.720
helped from you, from me personally
you because I knew this was coming up.

163
00:13:48.759 --> 00:13:54.519
So I went on a mixture of
very restricted diet which was basically chicken,

164
00:13:54.600 --> 00:14:00.360
broccoli and rice and avocados mixed in
with intermittent fasting and the way off

165
00:14:00.600 --> 00:14:03.519
and I shall continue to do so
it look better for us, better for

166
00:14:03.600 --> 00:14:07.759
it, I agreed, because I
want to lose. I was nearly ten

167
00:14:07.759 --> 00:14:11.559
percent. If I can get to
twenty twenty five percent, I'll be very

168
00:14:11.559 --> 00:14:15.919
happy. That was That's not a
six month period of ten kilars. You

169
00:14:15.919 --> 00:14:18.200
did that in a month, but
six weeks. Yeah. Yeah, And

170
00:14:18.240 --> 00:14:24.399
I didn't feel bad for it either, So I didn't feel that losing that

171
00:14:24.399 --> 00:14:28.799
way was a chore. I wasn't
angry all the time. But I did

172
00:14:28.840 --> 00:14:35.440
have to cut out drinking, which
was fund a good thing for me,

173
00:14:35.840 --> 00:14:41.200
definitely. It's a lot cheaper as
well. Christ Well, I had to

174
00:14:41.200 --> 00:14:46.919
find some way of a folding all
the shiny kissing again. Yeah, but

175
00:14:46.039 --> 00:14:52.000
Yeah, I spend more time doing
more of the hill walking with the properly

176
00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:58.919
weighted pack. My expectations and understanding
of the trade and walking into have developed,

177
00:15:00.279 --> 00:15:07.879
so I now know what to expect
and yeah, quite that really learning

178
00:15:07.879 --> 00:15:11.120
experience, I've learned a lot.
I'll be better for birth next on.

179
00:15:11.240 --> 00:15:16.799
So next up we have Chris who
was on the IT Bring this year.

180
00:15:16.799 --> 00:15:20.200
You are on the podcast, Yeah, I think so go on. All

181
00:15:20.279 --> 00:15:24.080
right. So the chance for me
to join this trip came up with Dave

182
00:15:24.120 --> 00:15:28.039
at the gathering in the summer.
Yeah, and it was more an nostalgia

183
00:15:28.159 --> 00:15:33.279
thing because I've been here before.
Last time I was at Neudark twenty twenty

184
00:15:33.279 --> 00:15:37.840
one, and obviously there was a
lot younger than because I'm a month away

185
00:15:37.840 --> 00:15:43.120
from sixty. Your mind remembers twenty
years ago, but your body is nowhere

186
00:15:43.200 --> 00:15:50.440
near it. So I packed too
heavy. I packed for other people because

187
00:15:50.480 --> 00:15:58.360
I'm so used to running activities where
you've got to take into consideration the lack

188
00:15:58.399 --> 00:16:02.159
of ability of other people you've got
with ye, not necessarily in the hills,

189
00:16:02.240 --> 00:16:07.440
but in like in a woodland environment
and in more of a lowland environment.

190
00:16:07.720 --> 00:16:11.559
And these guys are very capable and
I didn't appreciate that at all,

191
00:16:11.279 --> 00:16:18.519
so I sort of basically humped.
You might have to translate that for the

192
00:16:18.559 --> 00:16:23.480
Americans if they listened to no,
I carried. I carried fifty pounds up

193
00:16:23.519 --> 00:16:29.519
the hill, come back and used
perhaps a quarter of the stuff in there.

194
00:16:30.240 --> 00:16:33.320
Yeah. Yeah. One of the
other things that I did was I

195
00:16:33.360 --> 00:16:37.080
decided I wasn't going to throw a
load of money at new equipment for an

196
00:16:37.120 --> 00:16:44.200
activity that I would probably not do
that often or ever again, so I

197
00:16:44.360 --> 00:16:48.639
may do with what I had.
When you're in a group, you have

198
00:16:48.720 --> 00:16:56.799
to understand fitness is different to speed, and you may be fit enough to

199
00:16:56.840 --> 00:17:00.080
walk up and down the hill,
but you may not be fast enough to

200
00:17:00.159 --> 00:17:04.000
keep with the people you're with,
and that's very important to understand. But

201
00:17:06.119 --> 00:17:08.759
coming back to the estate was really
good. I enjoyed it and it was

202
00:17:08.799 --> 00:17:12.440
great fun with you guys. Yeah, because we I think we've been on

203
00:17:12.480 --> 00:17:18.960
the on the peninsula twenty two minutes
before you bumped into somebody you oh god.

204
00:17:18.039 --> 00:17:22.759
Yeah, And then there was another
one walking out. Yeah yeah.

205
00:17:22.200 --> 00:17:26.160
This guy sort of stopped was on
the track and he was doing the are

206
00:17:26.160 --> 00:17:29.160
you meant to be? You're not
meant to be? On that track over

207
00:17:29.200 --> 00:17:30.880
there on the other side of the
valley. Question. Yes, but then

208
00:17:30.920 --> 00:17:33.720
more to the points, I don't
know, we are heading for that hill

209
00:17:33.799 --> 00:17:36.359
there. He gave us a bit
of datron. Oh yeah, there's a

210
00:17:36.400 --> 00:17:38.720
new track that takes you about the
hydro there. And then if I was

211
00:17:38.759 --> 00:17:42.640
going to be doing this, I
go around onto the onto the ridge that

212
00:17:42.720 --> 00:17:48.400
curves around onto that first summit and
then you and Chris said, Drew,

213
00:17:48.480 --> 00:17:53.400
aren't you it was he's a stalker. The Yeah, he used to stalk

214
00:17:53.440 --> 00:17:57.680
that state thirty years. We only
find out he was retired when we spoke

215
00:17:57.720 --> 00:18:03.279
to the guy in the next day, didn't Yes, stalker is professional hunter,

216
00:18:03.079 --> 00:18:07.039
not not somebody who just keeps hiding
anyr bins. Oh yeah, and

217
00:18:07.079 --> 00:18:11.799
those guys are up and down those
hills all day with a rifle or pair

218
00:18:11.799 --> 00:18:17.200
of binoculars and spotting scope and that's
a cigarette as well, or yeah,

219
00:18:17.240 --> 00:18:19.359
and a little flask of whiskey.
And they're the types that if they do

220
00:18:19.400 --> 00:18:23.920
get stuck out up there, they're
just crawl out of the wind and come

221
00:18:23.960 --> 00:18:26.559
back the next day and no one
would ever worry about it. Yeah,

222
00:18:27.559 --> 00:18:32.680
yeah, but no, that's so
that was good. So it was.

223
00:18:33.839 --> 00:18:38.359
It was interesting as well seeing the
comparisons between kit because my kit was very

224
00:18:38.359 --> 00:18:44.799
different to alistairs and shockingly similar to
days unfortunately. Yes, yeah, Dave

225
00:18:44.880 --> 00:18:47.519
and I have have this weird thing. We don't communicate about stuff, and

226
00:18:47.519 --> 00:18:51.519
then we end up buying, if
not the same model of something, we

227
00:18:51.599 --> 00:18:55.200
end up buying something that's incredibly similar. So I think we ended up with

228
00:18:55.240 --> 00:18:59.200
the same boots, pretty much,
the same trousers, same rucksack, same

229
00:18:59.200 --> 00:19:03.640
satellite communicy, it's the same poles. They're all very very similar that you'd

230
00:19:03.680 --> 00:19:07.559
have look tice and that's my pack. Yeah, and it was. It

231
00:19:07.599 --> 00:19:12.480
was practiced such from the back from
from from the back. It was all

232
00:19:12.599 --> 00:19:17.920
very neat, so like an alpine
pack effectually, so there's nothing hanging off

233
00:19:17.920 --> 00:19:29.599
it, not like bottom pands banging
around. Yeah, because that's how I've

234
00:19:29.640 --> 00:19:32.640
learned to pack over the years.
It goes in the pack and you don't

235
00:19:32.680 --> 00:19:37.720
make a lot of noise because I
like to exist in nature, not scared.

236
00:19:37.720 --> 00:19:42.759
Its way. It was ironic because
you start a deer away, well,

237
00:19:42.880 --> 00:19:47.480
let me go, I think you
actually saw the deer that heard you

238
00:19:47.519 --> 00:19:52.160
when they were approaching us from an
angle. And it was when I was

239
00:19:52.160 --> 00:19:56.799
telling you to remain still and you
were walking towards the two coming towards the

240
00:19:56.839 --> 00:20:03.359
water. Oh well, I can
quite see what you would there. So

241
00:20:03.400 --> 00:20:07.319
if you're using handsOn, I didn't
know what they meant because I was never

242
00:20:07.359 --> 00:20:11.000
in the army. But on that
kit, I mean your tent weighed what

243
00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:15.559
under two killer grounds? I think
so, yes, I was using a

244
00:20:17.039 --> 00:20:22.200
hubb a hubber NX, which is
it's not a lightweight tart tent by any

245
00:20:22.400 --> 00:20:26.119
means, but it is you know, it's around the two kilo or just

246
00:20:26.240 --> 00:20:30.480
under one took it did take off, yes, so that was a learning

247
00:20:30.519 --> 00:20:37.559
point when you compare that new tech
with the old tech. I think my

248
00:20:37.759 --> 00:20:42.319
tent setup was around seven kilos,
but that was some of that are put

249
00:20:42.359 --> 00:20:45.960
down to the well the size of
it. You saw the difference in the

250
00:20:47.039 --> 00:20:52.400
size and also no in this ground. I chose really robust you know,

251
00:20:52.759 --> 00:20:56.599
brackets, heavy pegs to bring with
me as well, and never lost a

252
00:20:56.680 --> 00:21:03.079
peg that first night. Think it
was because of various reasons. We ended

253
00:21:03.119 --> 00:21:07.319
up in this saddle, which was
pretty much collecting all of the wind that

254
00:21:07.359 --> 00:21:08.839
had come over from the east of
Scotland, went right through the middle of

255
00:21:08.880 --> 00:21:15.119
the highlands and all focused into that
one acre of hillside into my tent.

256
00:21:17.519 --> 00:21:22.200
Yeah, because you I think you're
you're I was nearly finished setting my tent

257
00:21:22.319 --> 00:21:26.880
up when I saw your tent in
my sort of upper nine o'clock periphery as

258
00:21:26.880 --> 00:21:32.960
it blew away briefly because your your
small shepherd's crook pegs don't didn't actually hold

259
00:21:32.960 --> 00:21:37.200
in properly, but even mine I
was. I watched you set up your

260
00:21:37.200 --> 00:21:41.839
tensaster before I set mine up.
I usually sort of like as an avalanche

261
00:21:41.839 --> 00:21:45.960
poodle to try and find a way
to okay and see what happens to his

262
00:21:45.119 --> 00:21:48.039
tent, and then I'm going to
base. I had to go right next

263
00:21:48.039 --> 00:21:52.440
to him or all the way over
there, depending on how badly or well

264
00:21:52.519 --> 00:21:56.119
this goes. That is one of
the things I've picked up over the years

265
00:21:56.119 --> 00:22:00.640
and years is if you can always
go for the most robust pegs, because

266
00:22:00.680 --> 00:22:03.240
they will make such a difference.
So you can have the best tent in

267
00:22:03.240 --> 00:22:07.039
the world, but if it blows
away, you know you've had it.

268
00:22:07.119 --> 00:22:08.880
You can have a crappy tent,
but if it holds still, at least

269
00:22:08.880 --> 00:22:12.599
you've got some sort of cover.
Yes, but you just have to carry

270
00:22:12.640 --> 00:22:18.920
him. Yeah, I bought some
of the great big nine inch nail tenth

271
00:22:18.960 --> 00:22:23.079
snail pegs or more way up in
the ambleside, because I needly lost my

272
00:22:23.119 --> 00:22:29.680
tent then and the little pegs I
had were not sufficient for the grammy in.

273
00:22:29.759 --> 00:22:37.319
Then yeah, the little titanium chapper
tucks crooks because luckily I've brought more

274
00:22:37.359 --> 00:22:41.680
than a selection of pegs. So
yeah, when the inner decided to make

275
00:22:41.720 --> 00:22:49.279
its way swiftly towards the block,
and yeah, they were swiftly replaced with

276
00:22:49.960 --> 00:22:55.240
MSR groundhogs, which actually did the
job far more appen for me. And

277
00:22:56.000 --> 00:23:03.160
yeah, that's a note that are
used in logan conditions for sure. Then

278
00:23:03.160 --> 00:23:07.279
the next day, because we've got
things up about just bloat just over two

279
00:23:07.319 --> 00:23:11.839
thousand feet, I think we were
at We counted that our first night,

280
00:23:11.920 --> 00:23:15.759
and then alstrad I headed off in
one direction and Chris and Dave headed off

281
00:23:15.759 --> 00:23:21.279
in a different direction, and Alstrada
I decided we wanted to really wanted to

282
00:23:21.319 --> 00:23:23.799
do another eighteen kilometers, yes,
in a short period of time, and

283
00:23:23.960 --> 00:23:29.359
didn't see anybody until we were really
nearly at the bottom again, although there

284
00:23:29.440 --> 00:23:33.000
was a near miss where I decided
to go and flip a rock and dig

285
00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:36.400
a hole somewhere just off to the
one side of the track. Haven't not

286
00:23:36.400 --> 00:23:41.200
seen any other humans, But over
twenty four hours and not five minutes later,

287
00:23:41.559 --> 00:23:44.880
the only other two people in the
entire valley decided to try and walk

288
00:23:44.920 --> 00:23:51.200
past. Yes, there was a
certainly delaying tactics, mostly caused by a

289
00:23:51.200 --> 00:23:56.240
small Scottish slash wearing a Highland coup
hat, which was fascinating. Yeah.

290
00:23:56.640 --> 00:23:59.160
I've always got this theory that if
anyone does disturb me whilst we're in the

291
00:23:59.160 --> 00:24:02.680
middle of your blue sh and maintain
eye contact, maintain dominance, and they

292
00:24:02.880 --> 00:24:07.079
they'll back away slowly. It's their
fault. Yes, safe for bears,

293
00:24:07.079 --> 00:24:10.920
isn't it. Yeah? I think
well, you know, on our route

294
00:24:10.960 --> 00:24:17.559
back down, we started to then
see more of the deer trails and we

295
00:24:17.640 --> 00:24:21.400
never came back down the route that
we went up. We dropped into that

296
00:24:21.480 --> 00:24:26.559
re entrant and then we picked them
up. And there's a reason that the

297
00:24:26.599 --> 00:24:30.240
deer walked that way. Yes,
And it's a lot quicker, easier and

298
00:24:30.920 --> 00:24:37.400
interestingly less risky because they are not
scrambling over rocks and you can see the

299
00:24:37.440 --> 00:24:41.640
trails when they come to a boggy
area that they can't jump, they will

300
00:24:41.680 --> 00:24:45.720
walk around it, and it just
the more you come sort of tuned into

301
00:24:45.799 --> 00:24:49.480
that, they then lead you the
not necessarily the most direct way, but

302
00:24:49.519 --> 00:24:53.559
they lead you the safest way or
a safe way. It's no efficient roots,

303
00:24:53.559 --> 00:24:57.400
isn't it. Yah. I found
that on the second day where there

304
00:24:57.440 --> 00:25:03.799
was no human tracks really there,
but we would often be picking our way

305
00:25:03.799 --> 00:25:07.680
between two rocks over around the bluff
and you just do it visually based on

306
00:25:07.720 --> 00:25:11.000
what looks at the best line,
and then you get there and they'd already

307
00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:14.680
be deer prince or fresh deer who
on the ground. Yes, so you

308
00:25:14.720 --> 00:25:18.400
were following in the deer track without
even realizing it was there because you looked

309
00:25:18.400 --> 00:25:23.440
at it like a deer the longing
to be there. And it was interesting

310
00:25:23.480 --> 00:25:27.960
how often that happened. And that
is you just tuning into that environment in

311
00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:32.279
a relatively short period of time,
because when we were going up, you

312
00:25:32.319 --> 00:25:33.839
know, you can look at it
and go, oh, yeah, there's

313
00:25:33.839 --> 00:25:37.400
a deer motorway on the other side
and all the rest. But then within

314
00:25:37.640 --> 00:25:41.319
ten hours or you know, five
ten hours of that, you are then

315
00:25:41.400 --> 00:25:47.000
seeing those those single deer route.
Yeah. Definitely deer roots when Rich and

316
00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:51.119
I were following the ridge line.
I think half the times that we were

317
00:25:51.480 --> 00:25:56.200
actively avoiding them was so that we
could either look to see the next step

318
00:25:56.240 --> 00:25:59.759
of our root or just to sort
of claim the peek as it were,

319
00:26:00.480 --> 00:26:03.039
you know, where whereas the deer
would be running around slightly around sort of

320
00:26:03.119 --> 00:26:08.240
the leeward side of the hill or
on the slightly flattered ground just below where

321
00:26:08.279 --> 00:26:12.240
they're scent wouldn't be sent over the
hill. For sure, we were,

322
00:26:14.079 --> 00:26:17.440
you know, it was it was
nice to not be on a on a

323
00:26:17.680 --> 00:26:22.599
walk track actually a fair bit.
Yeah, it was using the ground you

324
00:26:22.920 --> 00:26:26.400
could sneak upon quite happily as well. You were well within stalking distance.

325
00:26:26.720 --> 00:26:34.480
Yeah. We had several good wildlife
encounters Tomigan snow grouse, thing, plenty

326
00:26:34.480 --> 00:26:40.519
of read deer. We've got seal
down in the valley. Yeah yeah,

327
00:26:40.680 --> 00:26:42.240
yeah. We saw squirrels in the
woods coming back down, didn't we.

328
00:26:42.359 --> 00:26:53.119
There were grays and the highland some
of them. It's no doubt really is

329
00:26:53.160 --> 00:26:56.640
a special place, and that that
ferry ride that brings you in, so

330
00:26:56.720 --> 00:27:00.440
it's a half hour ferry you bucket
from a placed on the lake on the

331
00:27:00.440 --> 00:27:03.240
mainland, I could say, in
the mainland, but it's both on the

332
00:27:03.279 --> 00:27:07.039
mainland, but it really does feel
like an island when you're there because you're

333
00:27:07.039 --> 00:27:12.119
accessed by sea, and to walk
out is a couple of days realistically from

334
00:27:12.119 --> 00:27:18.599
where we were, so that ferry
ride across is there's always something about arriving

335
00:27:18.759 --> 00:27:22.119
somewhere by small boats as well that
it doesn't make it feel a little bit

336
00:27:22.160 --> 00:27:26.039
special. Yeah, I think when
we landed because I think we'd looked at

337
00:27:26.039 --> 00:27:30.960
the weather and made some predictions based
on wind speeds and so on, and

338
00:27:30.960 --> 00:27:37.079
our original plan was that we would
catch the boat in and then walk out

339
00:27:37.319 --> 00:27:41.160
because then we wouldn't be beholden to
whatever weather came in, as it was

340
00:27:41.200 --> 00:27:45.200
beginning to look a bit gusty and
a bit fruity for the extraction. So

341
00:27:45.240 --> 00:27:52.160
our original plan was to walk out, And I think part of the impetus

342
00:27:52.160 --> 00:27:56.079
when we got there was like,
this is us. Now We've got,

343
00:27:56.279 --> 00:27:59.759
you know, two or three days
ahead of us to slog out back to

344
00:28:00.039 --> 00:28:03.480
you know, where we parted the
car in the first place. And there

345
00:28:03.519 --> 00:28:10.759
is a I like that thing about
it being committed to a place, because

346
00:28:10.759 --> 00:28:15.880
that was something in the original plan
which we didn't quite hit because that plan

347
00:28:17.000 --> 00:28:19.400
all hinged on. You had to
get to this certain point by the end

348
00:28:19.400 --> 00:28:22.640
of day one because if you didn't
hit that point, then you wouldn't be

349
00:28:22.640 --> 00:28:27.680
able to make up the time on
day two in order to do day three,

350
00:28:27.759 --> 00:28:32.880
which got you back to the start
point. Yes, and there was

351
00:28:32.880 --> 00:28:36.319
a bit of extra communication with home, trying to get sort of ferries,

352
00:28:36.319 --> 00:28:41.039
book and things like that, because
there is a mobile data signal there now

353
00:28:41.160 --> 00:28:45.079
at four G in places, but
even so once you're once a behind the

354
00:28:45.079 --> 00:28:51.440
mountain, it doesn't work. Yeah, and we took different communication devices with

355
00:28:51.559 --> 00:28:55.480
alses just occurs. Yes, Yeah, that was part of my planning.

356
00:28:56.000 --> 00:29:00.559
Everyone else carried the gear. Dave
and I both had the Mobile Defy Satellite

357
00:29:00.559 --> 00:29:03.599
communicator, which we you bought about
a month before I did. Yes,

358
00:29:03.960 --> 00:29:08.960
and we've both been playing around with
which seems to work, but it does

359
00:29:10.079 --> 00:29:14.160
require being able to see a satellite
that's quite low in the sky, so

360
00:29:14.160 --> 00:29:18.200
when you're behind a mountain and there's
a mountain between you and the satellite doesn't

361
00:29:18.200 --> 00:29:22.599
work. It's been very similar to
every satellite phone experience I've ever had in

362
00:29:22.680 --> 00:29:26.200
a valley, which is wandering around
with the area at a slight angle,

363
00:29:26.240 --> 00:29:30.559
going no, yeah, no,
yeah, no, right, because the

364
00:29:30.599 --> 00:29:38.160
satellites are all equatorial and we are
fairly far north well, you know,

365
00:29:38.240 --> 00:29:42.480
relative to most other things. I
think we are about level with mid Nova

366
00:29:42.519 --> 00:29:48.160
Scotia. Yeah, always gets it
wrong. It's how far north England or

367
00:29:48.279 --> 00:29:52.319
Britain, the British hours actually are. We're actually remarkably far north, but

368
00:29:52.319 --> 00:29:56.640
we're worn temperate and down, yes, beacause of the Atlantic and the jetstrip,

369
00:29:59.160 --> 00:30:00.880
but we are quite quite long way
up. So we are at the

370
00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:06.799
edge of where Motorola and Bullet and
the people that run the software and the

371
00:30:06.839 --> 00:30:10.240
satellites for it, they say that
we are in the coverage zone that is

372
00:30:10.240 --> 00:30:15.079
well covered. But I would say
only if you're on a south facing slope.

373
00:30:15.960 --> 00:30:19.960
Yes, I mean even on the
top of the hill. Sometimes I

374
00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:27.039
was finding finding it difficult to get
stuff like coverage yea, as the communicators

375
00:30:27.160 --> 00:30:32.279
do need to be on top of
your pick yes, high up with a

376
00:30:32.319 --> 00:30:33.799
good view of the sky, so
you can't check it in the bottom of

377
00:30:33.839 --> 00:30:38.039
your pipe. It won't work.
Literally turning your rocksack over it's enough to

378
00:30:38.039 --> 00:30:41.799
block it. It's almost like you
have to orientate it before you then commit

379
00:30:41.839 --> 00:30:45.079
to sending the message. Rather than
just relying on it being there. Yeah.

380
00:30:45.160 --> 00:30:48.880
Yeah, yeah, also just looked
it up. We're at fifty seven

381
00:30:48.880 --> 00:30:55.359
degrees latitude where we were there,
so and whereas Chris, you took a

382
00:30:55.359 --> 00:30:59.319
PLD. Yeah, that's I always
carry that. I have for years and

383
00:31:00.079 --> 00:31:03.440
well, as you know, it's
not a communicator. It's a press the

384
00:31:03.440 --> 00:31:08.240
button for help device, but that
relies on well that's working to different satellites,

385
00:31:08.279 --> 00:31:14.279
to the communication satellites. So you
are according to the stats and the

386
00:31:14.319 --> 00:31:18.599
history of people who've used it,
you know you've got good coverage very far

387
00:31:18.680 --> 00:31:22.960
north and south worldwide. You might
struggle on the pole. Other than that,

388
00:31:23.079 --> 00:31:26.559
you know, it's yeah, because
that's the think yours is you press

389
00:31:26.559 --> 00:31:30.200
the button, unfold the antenna,
and then it's leaps until the battery goes

390
00:31:30.240 --> 00:31:33.200
dead. That's right. Yeah.
So it's got the GPS antenna and then

391
00:31:33.279 --> 00:31:40.960
the satellite antenna and it bangs out
four h six megahertz at five watts,

392
00:31:41.480 --> 00:31:45.559
So it will punch through pretty much
anything. And where we were, there's

393
00:31:45.559 --> 00:31:48.440
nothing to stop it. You're going, I'm here, come get me,

394
00:31:48.519 --> 00:31:52.640
I'm here, come get me,
can get me repeatedly. Yeah, And

395
00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:57.039
it will do that and update your
position every sort of it's fifteen minutes,

396
00:31:57.880 --> 00:32:00.599
so you're you know, you're not
probably not going to be moving anyway,

397
00:32:00.720 --> 00:32:05.960
so it's it's great on that.
The disadvantage, of course, is then

398
00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:08.920
you don't get that two way colms
like you would if you guys hit your

399
00:32:09.160 --> 00:32:13.759
emergency buttons. There's a chance that
someone could then assess what the nature of

400
00:32:13.960 --> 00:32:16.839
injuries and give you an update on
time frames. With the PLB, just

401
00:32:17.240 --> 00:32:22.400
hunker down and wait it out.
Yeah. And also I suppose it doesn't

402
00:32:22.680 --> 00:32:25.519
because of that lack of two way. It doesn't allow you to resolve minor

403
00:32:25.559 --> 00:32:30.640
problems. It's either it's nothing or
nuclear. That's right. It's a cool

404
00:32:30.680 --> 00:32:35.039
for rescue rather than ask for advice. Yeah, or I can't say other

405
00:32:35.079 --> 00:32:37.480
ferries running tomorrow? Is this thing
running? Is this? What's the what's

406
00:32:37.519 --> 00:32:40.319
the weather forecast? But I can
ask if as long as you get a

407
00:32:40.319 --> 00:32:44.279
signal, I can go and ask
Amy, yeah and look it up for

408
00:32:44.440 --> 00:32:49.920
me. But that overall is part
of that sort of pre planning for it.

409
00:32:50.119 --> 00:32:52.880
Because the stuff like Communicator, it
communicates to an app, so it's

410
00:32:52.880 --> 00:32:55.119
not you can just send a text
message out, but you can't do two

411
00:32:55.160 --> 00:33:00.240
way unless you're within their app that
app lies the person on the around.

412
00:33:00.240 --> 00:33:01.799
I think you probably have this with
your wife as well. But the app

413
00:33:01.880 --> 00:33:07.680
is open and they're expecting you to
be sending messages through it, but it's

414
00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:10.640
running in the background. Yeah,
it's going to be enabled on the on

415
00:33:10.680 --> 00:33:15.079
the handset and they have to signed
up and you know it's got to be

416
00:33:15.119 --> 00:33:19.680
present. Oh, you just get
based texas you go download this app.

417
00:33:19.799 --> 00:33:22.200
Some people have to talk to you. Yeah, but I found with that

418
00:33:22.400 --> 00:33:24.799
the first time you do that,
it doesn't actually work properly. Is until

419
00:33:24.839 --> 00:33:30.440
you almost started a new conversation,
and then it works about them. I

420
00:33:30.440 --> 00:33:36.000
think there's an app book which is
the sort of thing you test a few

421
00:33:36.039 --> 00:33:37.480
weeks before you go on a trip. You don't want to do that whilst

422
00:33:37.480 --> 00:33:40.200
you're in the middle of nowhere to
work it back and forth while sit there

423
00:33:40.200 --> 00:33:44.519
were two firms next to each other. Yes, absolutely, you've got to

424
00:33:44.559 --> 00:33:50.440
established that relationship with the person that
we talk to before needing to because I

425
00:33:50.519 --> 00:33:53.519
think that's something that people often do
is they buy a piece of equipment for

426
00:33:53.599 --> 00:33:57.680
a trusted brand, trusted source.
They trust the reviews and they trust it's

427
00:33:57.759 --> 00:34:00.880
going to do exactly what it says
on the tin. But I'm a very

428
00:34:00.880 --> 00:34:02.720
suspicious person and I want to go, Yeah, I want to I want

429
00:34:02.759 --> 00:34:06.559
it. I want it to do
the thing in front of me good conditions,

430
00:34:06.599 --> 00:34:08.519
two or three times before I trust
that it is actually going to do

431
00:34:08.559 --> 00:34:12.679
that thing. Yes, Is that
water filter going to work? Is that

432
00:34:12.800 --> 00:34:16.679
tent going to stand up? Is
is that sleeping that going to stay inflated?

433
00:34:17.039 --> 00:34:20.920
Think you had a few issues of
that somewhere. I've got a small

434
00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:24.199
leak of moid sleeping that and even
submerging at the bath. I can find

435
00:34:24.440 --> 00:34:29.760
the whole at the atomic level somewhere. It's I think it's leaking seal that

436
00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:36.199
trying to submerge and inflated sleeping is
actually quite difficult because it doesn't want to.

437
00:34:37.559 --> 00:34:40.280
So if I've got that tiny leak
and it's not showing bubbles with some

438
00:34:40.760 --> 00:34:45.639
soapy water, I actually need to
submerge it in still water to see the

439
00:34:45.639 --> 00:34:49.800
air bubbles coming out. You need
more of a swimming pool than a bath,

440
00:34:50.400 --> 00:34:53.599
and several people to hold it now
weight it down and I just see.

441
00:34:54.400 --> 00:34:59.440
But that was interesting about the communication
devices because the three of us took

442
00:34:59.480 --> 00:35:07.079
one. Obviously, Alistair is relying
on ours a little bit if it all

443
00:35:07.199 --> 00:35:12.000
went pe Tom. But thinking back
on it, I never did any training

444
00:35:12.199 --> 00:35:16.639
with yours or your motor rollers.
You know, I never bothered myself to

445
00:35:16.679 --> 00:35:19.800
go, like, show me how
this will work. So if I have

446
00:35:19.840 --> 00:35:22.119
to use that in a hurry because
I'm the only one left and I need

447
00:35:22.159 --> 00:35:27.400
to text my last will and testament
to somebody, or how does this actually

448
00:35:27.440 --> 00:35:30.280
work? But you did show us
your yeah, showed me. Yeah,

449
00:35:30.360 --> 00:35:34.880
yeah, I got the beacon out
on the night before we went and showed

450
00:35:34.880 --> 00:35:37.199
you the buttons. But it could
be even a simple thing like oh,

451
00:35:37.280 --> 00:35:40.440
yeah, I know yours works through
the phone, but how do I unlock

452
00:35:40.480 --> 00:35:44.840
your phone? What's your code on
the screen? You know? Do I

453
00:35:44.880 --> 00:35:52.880
have to cut your thumb off or
something to cut off? It's better to

454
00:35:52.920 --> 00:36:00.039
be sure. Yeah, that's which
hand putting your in head on again and

455
00:36:00.119 --> 00:36:05.239
a bit of an instructor learning,
and that's sharing that that kit and that

456
00:36:05.320 --> 00:36:08.320
knowledge rather than just for a lot
of richer take care of it. And

457
00:36:08.360 --> 00:36:12.880
then we all took water filters,
which is quite interesting. Yeah, that's

458
00:36:12.880 --> 00:36:16.079
gone more for you. No,
it's my phone, which was recording half

459
00:36:16.079 --> 00:36:21.920
the conversation on has just decided to
reboot itself. So we'll start that recording

460
00:36:21.920 --> 00:36:25.000
again. Should we pause everything?
Picking up on this and people like to

461
00:36:25.039 --> 00:36:36.039
hear the shambolic nature of the kettle. We knew that plan right. We're

462
00:36:36.079 --> 00:36:40.800
back, So the audio may have
changed a little bit because my phone decided

463
00:36:40.960 --> 00:36:45.440
to die. I don't know why. I think it was actually the app

464
00:36:45.480 --> 00:36:50.199
for running motorrollers have like communicator,
decided didn't like what we were saying about

465
00:36:50.199 --> 00:36:53.639
it and killed itself. So we've
changed up positions on the table and now

466
00:36:53.679 --> 00:36:58.280
the recording devices at one end.
So the audio quality may have gone up

467
00:36:58.360 --> 00:37:01.320
or down depending on how badly the
first bit went. If it sounds like

468
00:37:01.400 --> 00:37:07.239
my bits had dubbed in afterwards,
they probably weren't. So we started talking

469
00:37:07.280 --> 00:37:12.239
about this when we were resetting with
new coffee and resetting the table. There's

470
00:37:12.239 --> 00:37:19.239
a thing about tech overall, which
Chris said about we didn't show you know.

471
00:37:19.280 --> 00:37:21.920
This is how you use our device, but realistically, unless you have

472
00:37:21.960 --> 00:37:22.840
to go into the app, go
and find the messages and do the two

473
00:37:22.840 --> 00:37:27.159
way to access a two way communication
for our things, you have to go

474
00:37:27.239 --> 00:37:30.760
right into the app on our phones, but on the device itself there is

475
00:37:30.800 --> 00:37:35.800
a big orange SOS but to press
that and stuff will happen. There's a

476
00:37:35.920 --> 00:37:38.039
checking button as well, which if
you set it up in yeah, yes,

477
00:37:38.239 --> 00:37:43.920
it can send your current location to
your nominated check in contact. Yes.

478
00:37:44.159 --> 00:37:45.960
Yeah. The only thing I'd say
on that is when you look at

479
00:37:45.960 --> 00:37:51.239
the video, they're a promotional video
and it says, you know, even

480
00:37:51.280 --> 00:37:53.719
if you press the SOS but and
they will then come back to you.

481
00:37:55.320 --> 00:38:00.119
That sort of implies and I've never
used it, but it implies that I

482
00:38:00.199 --> 00:38:04.480
then have to go on that phone
to apply to their messages. We're going

483
00:38:04.519 --> 00:38:07.199
to do a review on it,
and I'm going to ask them for some

484
00:38:07.320 --> 00:38:10.039
questions because there was some feedback on
this anyway. But I will ask that

485
00:38:10.400 --> 00:38:15.079
if you just press it and ignore
it, does something? Do they eventually

486
00:38:15.079 --> 00:38:20.599
go or I will send something Yeah, appears on your head ultimately, right,

487
00:38:20.639 --> 00:38:24.320
it's going to be the same emergency
service or volunteer organization that comes to

488
00:38:24.360 --> 00:38:30.320
you. It's how that that group
receives the information, you know, because

489
00:38:30.320 --> 00:38:32.880
they're going to be tasked by the
police. But the police after then get

490
00:38:32.880 --> 00:38:37.280
the information. Does it come from
a pool center in Kuala Lumpet or does

491
00:38:37.280 --> 00:38:40.719
it you know, how does it
work? Then comes through the ARC.

492
00:38:42.719 --> 00:38:46.159
Yeah, but then it's like that
The emergency show was quite interesting because when

493
00:38:46.199 --> 00:38:51.480
I was talking to the sign of
the police guys, they're very well practiced

494
00:38:52.519 --> 00:38:58.400
on taskings that come through regular channels. So if the the RCC tasks the

495
00:38:58.440 --> 00:39:04.360
local police force, that is an
established procedure. But if it's like let's

496
00:39:04.400 --> 00:39:09.320
just say it's the Garment Emergency Control
Center that then phones a police number in

497
00:39:09.360 --> 00:39:13.440
the UK, You've got all of
that. Is it real, isn't it?

498
00:39:13.679 --> 00:39:16.119
You know, the procedure isn't quite
as well practiced. Yeah, I

499
00:39:16.119 --> 00:39:20.039
think it goes center. I think
I think in the UK both PLDs and

500
00:39:20.039 --> 00:39:23.760
this sort of goes to definitely will
go through Farmer Yeah, and goes through

501
00:39:24.039 --> 00:39:28.280
basically Coast Guard. Yeah, it
goes through the MCA. It used to

502
00:39:28.280 --> 00:39:30.559
be in lots sorry if Kin Loss
up here didn't. Yeah, there was

503
00:39:30.559 --> 00:39:35.199
two. There was the Farmers one
was the civilian one and then the r

504
00:39:35.280 --> 00:39:39.280
c C at Kin Loss was for
when we had military covering why need search

505
00:39:39.320 --> 00:39:43.880
and rescue legions and stuff like that. But now it's all just based a

506
00:39:43.920 --> 00:39:46.960
phone and depending on who you got, there was either the seeking but it's

507
00:39:47.000 --> 00:39:52.519
way to sell this to me that
we actually need to send you a seeking

508
00:39:52.760 --> 00:39:57.599
which was there was always interesting conversations. But that's the parts of the thing

509
00:39:57.639 --> 00:40:02.039
about other tech. Because Dave and
I both had os maps with us.

510
00:40:02.079 --> 00:40:09.719
You had the maps printouts, yeah, copy map. Yeah. And then

511
00:40:10.519 --> 00:40:15.559
Dave and I were both running Outdoor
Active on our phone as an app.

512
00:40:15.920 --> 00:40:21.559
Yes, I also have Mr Map
as well, Yes, which is I

513
00:40:21.599 --> 00:40:24.960
think I prefer the map rendering to
be honest on the map. Yeah.

514
00:40:25.159 --> 00:40:29.639
Outdoor Active app has got better,
but it's still doggy and doesn't have all

515
00:40:29.639 --> 00:40:31.280
the features and wanted to have it. It sort of took over from an

516
00:40:31.320 --> 00:40:36.400
app that was called view Ranger,
which was almost perfect. Yes, everyone

517
00:40:36.480 --> 00:40:43.239
loved it, and then it went
and now it's sad because it's acts as

518
00:40:43.280 --> 00:40:45.559
a sort of trained map reader.
It was. It was nice when we

519
00:40:45.599 --> 00:40:50.159
were up on the high sort of
ridge with some of the wind and you

520
00:40:50.199 --> 00:40:54.800
were there just with your phone,
quick zoom. That's that's the next sort

521
00:40:54.840 --> 00:41:00.840
of checkpoint that we're aiming for without
a map flopping around. You've cut down

522
00:41:00.880 --> 00:41:04.000
your map, which yeah, it's
pretty pre standard of the size of the

523
00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:07.000
phone. Screwing basically yeah, yeah, so I do it so I can

524
00:41:07.039 --> 00:41:09.599
fold it to that size. But
also sometimes you know, like when it's

525
00:41:09.639 --> 00:41:14.920
up there and you're looking at five
k's on a little square is not enough.

526
00:41:14.960 --> 00:41:17.039
Sometimes you need to be able to
see a big like that little bit

527
00:41:17.199 --> 00:41:22.280
bit further but at the same scale, because that really MUCKs me up is

528
00:41:22.280 --> 00:41:25.320
when you can zoom in and out
and the squares get I'm just so tuned

529
00:41:25.360 --> 00:41:29.920
into looking at a two centimeter square, you know, it's I find it

530
00:41:29.960 --> 00:41:36.119
difficult then to see features when that
two centimeters square becomes five and then it

531
00:41:36.199 --> 00:41:40.440
changes changes the color scheme as well, exactly. Legend say, we were

532
00:41:40.880 --> 00:41:44.440
quite tech heavy. I suppose we're
a little really. We have, you

533
00:41:44.480 --> 00:41:52.480
know, three three emergency systems,
three hard hard copy maps, two electronic

534
00:41:52.599 --> 00:41:57.480
versions walking around. I think I
was carrying three compasses. Yeah, I

535
00:41:57.480 --> 00:42:01.800
think each of us had a compass
I have. Yeah, there was with

536
00:42:01.880 --> 00:42:07.519
the matching, but with the tech
for the mapping for the app. We

537
00:42:07.519 --> 00:42:10.079
were using that as a map.
We weren't using it as GPS dedyce.

538
00:42:10.159 --> 00:42:14.800
So yeah, if we were relying
on waypoints and saying, okay, navigate

539
00:42:14.840 --> 00:42:16.719
to this waypoint in the straight line. Navigated this waypoint in a straight line.

540
00:42:16.920 --> 00:42:21.440
It was we already looked at the
map weeks before and going, yeah,

541
00:42:21.559 --> 00:42:24.400
there's that flap ontour to that flat
contur these contours in between. That's

542
00:42:24.400 --> 00:42:28.679
an acceptable ridge, that's an acceptable
sloppangle. I know I can walk at

543
00:42:28.719 --> 00:42:30.440
that with this kind of pack.
There might be some rocks, it might

544
00:42:30.480 --> 00:42:34.920
be some undergrowth, but we'll deal
with that on the day. And then

545
00:42:35.679 --> 00:42:38.199
we were just navigating from assuming I
no, I need to get to this

546
00:42:38.239 --> 00:42:42.519
flap bit, this bit on the
on the ridge, so that's through here,

547
00:42:42.599 --> 00:42:45.559
through here, through here, and
then looking at it at it on

548
00:42:45.639 --> 00:42:50.280
the ground, I'd say, if
it'll be navigator. If the weather had

549
00:42:50.360 --> 00:42:53.159
come in and we dropped down to
sort of normal Scottish visibility, which is

550
00:42:53.199 --> 00:42:57.519
about the length of your trekking pole, then I would have gone to the

551
00:42:57.599 --> 00:43:02.480
paper map, I think, because
I'm more comfortable using that to go from

552
00:43:02.519 --> 00:43:07.320
place to place to place with or
without the assistance of the compass, because

553
00:43:07.920 --> 00:43:12.960
it's easy. Like Chris are saying, my brain is built then for the

554
00:43:13.000 --> 00:43:15.960
square, for the grips of being
a certain size, whereas with the phone

555
00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:19.800
and zooming games, zoom and zooming
out, so you can't get a sense

556
00:43:19.880 --> 00:43:23.639
of how far apart of those contours
are based on your zoom level. Yes,

557
00:43:24.519 --> 00:43:29.400
you have to put you have to
then dedicate more brain energy to work

558
00:43:29.440 --> 00:43:34.880
out what should almost be a second
nature sort of understanding. Yeah, I

559
00:43:34.960 --> 00:43:40.079
think like talking about the weather as
a as a designates for our replanning or

560
00:43:40.159 --> 00:43:47.519
planning. I think that the wind
speed change changed our root selection initially from

561
00:43:47.639 --> 00:43:52.199
voting boat act to we're going to
try and walk out. And then when

562
00:43:52.239 --> 00:43:58.599
we hit the ground it's very you
know, beautiful weather actually, and we

563
00:43:59.760 --> 00:44:06.480
as we got up to that towards
the lock the hydro lake and then beyond

564
00:44:07.760 --> 00:44:12.599
the wind started kicking in when we
were getting more exposed. And I think

565
00:44:12.800 --> 00:44:22.239
that's changed your guys' perceptions of what
was ahead possibly yes versus Richard and I's

566
00:44:22.119 --> 00:44:29.400
yeah, sort of situation of how
it would change our plan on the ground.

567
00:44:30.079 --> 00:44:34.400
Would you say anything to that?
Yeah? But also like I was

568
00:44:35.320 --> 00:44:40.039
like quietly not confident, but sort
of quietly hopeful that I could achieve an

569
00:44:40.079 --> 00:44:45.679
average of around sort of like say
two clicks an hour, but just a

570
00:44:45.719 --> 00:44:51.880
steady pace. But then that that
quickly became apparent as we started to climb,

571
00:44:51.880 --> 00:44:53.440
when we were hitting that rat and
that I wasn't going to do that,

572
00:44:53.599 --> 00:44:55.760
and that was going to have a
big effect on what you guys,

573
00:44:55.800 --> 00:45:00.360
because you know, like you guys
are probably your four clicks an hour years

574
00:45:00.719 --> 00:45:05.280
we are, well, I'm certainly
twenty years. You're young. Yeah,

575
00:45:05.280 --> 00:45:09.000
but I mean that's not the point
because it's the effect of one person on

576
00:45:09.119 --> 00:45:13.840
that whole group and not the mission. But you know what, the sort

577
00:45:13.880 --> 00:45:17.960
of light the outline aim was,
Yeah, faster, that's right, and

578
00:45:19.039 --> 00:45:22.079
then you don't like the rest stop
so you guys can get ahead. You

579
00:45:22.199 --> 00:45:25.840
then wait for me to catch up. I get my ten minutes, you've

580
00:45:25.840 --> 00:45:30.519
already had twenty and you're off again, so you're not catching up on that.

581
00:45:31.360 --> 00:45:37.119
I think there's also a if you're
walking for ten hours, you've got

582
00:45:37.239 --> 00:45:38.880
ten hours of walking drained from your
legs, no matter what speed you go

583
00:45:38.960 --> 00:45:44.199
back to. Definitely, it's like
some of them you can feel absolutely knackered

584
00:45:44.239 --> 00:45:47.360
after a day of wandering around doing
Christmas shopping, despite you haven't actually gone

585
00:45:47.360 --> 00:45:51.840
that fast, you haven't gone that
far. It's just you are standing up

586
00:45:51.880 --> 00:45:57.159
and shuffling and adusting your weight for
ten hours. Yeah, it's the same

587
00:45:57.280 --> 00:45:59.840
thing for because I was like I
was feeling quite tired at the end of

588
00:45:59.880 --> 00:46:04.440
day one. We hadn't necessarily gone
as far as we wanted to, because

589
00:46:04.480 --> 00:46:06.519
it turning up at that time.
We just went. And even if it

590
00:46:06.599 --> 00:46:10.559
was standing around waiting, we're still
holding seventeen like pack or whatever. And

591
00:46:10.679 --> 00:46:15.400
also it's our differences because looking at
day one, if I was making the

592
00:46:15.480 --> 00:46:20.639
decision to lead a group up there, I would have probably just followed the

593
00:46:20.760 --> 00:46:24.960
re entrant rather than you know,
we went. We followed Drew's little sniggery

594
00:46:25.000 --> 00:46:29.440
advice and went to the left and
hit it almost straight on, didn't we.

595
00:46:29.800 --> 00:46:34.480
In places, see, I've found
a mountaineering that it's a it's a

596
00:46:35.079 --> 00:46:37.679
shallower slope, aangle to go on
the left because the ridge is more gradual,

597
00:46:37.760 --> 00:46:42.079
it's still pretty steep, whereas the
re entrant you're going up into it,

598
00:46:42.119 --> 00:46:45.239
but then the last bit is a
full on climb out at the end,

599
00:46:45.880 --> 00:46:50.639
whereas the other way you run up
and flaps. In hindsight, and

600
00:46:50.880 --> 00:46:52.840
having seen what we've seen as we
came down, and it would that wouldn't

601
00:46:52.840 --> 00:46:54.639
have been the case. We'd have
gone up, you know, on the

602
00:46:54.719 --> 00:46:59.760
left side, following the deer track, and then there was the deer motorway

603
00:46:59.840 --> 00:47:01.599
was on the right and we'd have
come out right by that little lot where

604
00:47:01.639 --> 00:47:07.840
we all spent the night. Yeah, we did find a much more gentle

605
00:47:07.920 --> 00:47:12.079
route down what we took out,
Yeah, which whilst it's still the same

606
00:47:12.280 --> 00:47:20.360
vertical ascent, it's no nearest of
it too. There's the whole mental challenge

607
00:47:20.440 --> 00:47:22.320
as well, when when you're sting
the bottom and sudden that's thirty to forty

608
00:47:22.360 --> 00:47:27.320
degrees and you look at going that's
really steep and I'm going to struggle.

609
00:47:28.800 --> 00:47:32.119
You've already decided you're going to struggle, Yeah, and you don't know that

610
00:47:32.239 --> 00:47:36.960
you're descent route would have been better
in ascent onto your tray. That's exactly

611
00:47:37.079 --> 00:47:38.840
right, absolute, Yeah, that's
that's one of the things. And it

612
00:47:38.920 --> 00:47:44.320
comes with familiarity with the area walking
in and this was this was an adventure,

613
00:47:44.760 --> 00:47:46.199
yeah, And that's the whole point
it was. It was going in

614
00:47:46.360 --> 00:47:50.039
that this was definitely unknown for me, well out of my comfort zone,

615
00:47:50.519 --> 00:47:55.360
and I didn't know the trail at
all. I've looked on Google Earth,

616
00:47:55.480 --> 00:48:00.320
I've thrown through because you can bring
a viewpoint down and literally move through about

617
00:48:00.320 --> 00:48:05.639
it. And even then he was
unprepared for the severity of it. So

618
00:48:05.760 --> 00:48:08.360
your research was going to Google,
mapp sliding around. I think you'd looked

619
00:48:08.360 --> 00:48:15.039
at trail routes because you during the
initial planning you were putting out various different

620
00:48:15.039 --> 00:48:20.440
ones. Yeah. I looked at
people's blogs and previous routes, photographs,

621
00:48:20.880 --> 00:48:22.679
their comments about where things aren't,
what things are, the best routes.

622
00:48:23.559 --> 00:48:27.480
So I've done a lot of background
reading and a lot of what I thought

623
00:48:27.599 --> 00:48:34.440
was meant mental preparation for arriving,
and I hadn't done enough. And then

624
00:48:34.559 --> 00:48:37.559
Chris, you were going off your
base knowledge of when you've been here,

625
00:48:37.159 --> 00:48:40.679
Yeah, years ago, But that's
just they you know, you meet in

626
00:48:40.760 --> 00:48:43.880
the morning, you go out for
the day, and you come back.

627
00:48:44.159 --> 00:48:47.639
You're not you're not doing what we
did. And also when you look at

628
00:48:47.679 --> 00:48:52.880
a lot of the reviews of people
who are walking that area, they will

629
00:48:52.960 --> 00:48:55.119
go and stay in the lodges and
things and bag a couple of monros of

630
00:48:55.199 --> 00:49:00.440
the day and then come back,
so they're not planning for overnight, which

631
00:49:00.559 --> 00:49:04.840
is what we were doing. So
we were planning for two overnight it yeah,

632
00:49:05.840 --> 00:49:09.679
three maximum. Because I did again
likely some of other people's blogs,

633
00:49:09.760 --> 00:49:14.519
there was I was looking on I
don't know, a road bagger or something

634
00:49:14.559 --> 00:49:17.119
like that for the local area and
seeing what other routes people were doing,

635
00:49:17.119 --> 00:49:22.559
because that was just towards the end
of the planning selection when we were finalizing.

636
00:49:22.840 --> 00:49:28.559
And then I found a couple of
YouTube videos of people walking the trails

637
00:49:28.599 --> 00:49:30.880
that would have taken us to the
Sudi's Bottom, which was one of our

638
00:49:30.920 --> 00:49:36.599
first overnight spot, so I could
see the terrain and so at least in

639
00:49:36.679 --> 00:49:39.239
my head, I have not been
up here before, I knew what to

640
00:49:39.360 --> 00:49:49.360
expect, steep mountains given little tree
cover, given the videos gave me the

641
00:49:49.639 --> 00:49:57.719
bandness that I'd forgotten or was unaware
of. And also sort of how the

642
00:49:57.840 --> 00:50:02.639
wet dry conditions, because we really
experienced the wet conditional normal Scotland. It

643
00:50:02.840 --> 00:50:07.199
was very dry, wasn't it.
Were really happy with the very dry considering

644
00:50:07.280 --> 00:50:13.280
how bad the other side of Scotland's
had it recently. It's still barb it

645
00:50:13.400 --> 00:50:17.960
flowing through and flooding into our communities
and people dying Western Higlan. It was

646
00:50:19.039 --> 00:50:22.880
surprising and just how dry it was, Just how dry the you know,

647
00:50:22.000 --> 00:50:27.320
the streams in the re entrance that
the water flow from dam and everything.

648
00:50:27.400 --> 00:50:30.639
It was. Yeah, there's a
trickle. It's the driest I've seen in

649
00:50:30.639 --> 00:50:37.119
the Western Highlands in October. Yeah, there was, and that that made

650
00:50:37.159 --> 00:50:40.360
everything easier in a way, which
doesn't really affect the other decision and the

651
00:50:40.440 --> 00:50:45.239
other points. But the difference in
wet rain, the difference in bogy terrain,

652
00:50:45.320 --> 00:50:49.480
the difference and just how much resistance
the ground puts up when you put

653
00:50:49.480 --> 00:50:55.199
your foot on it. That makes
a huge difference to what to how much

654
00:50:55.239 --> 00:51:00.159
effort it tastes to traverse that route, how much, how much mental energy

655
00:51:00.199 --> 00:51:06.599
intakes to go through that route.
But it's thing, I feel like we've

656
00:51:06.639 --> 00:51:10.400
all had good learning points from this, and it's not necessarily the learning points

657
00:51:10.480 --> 00:51:16.480
we expected to gain. I think
it was sense to talk learning points.

658
00:51:16.480 --> 00:51:23.199
There was a comment I think Chris
brought up, which was he carries poles

659
00:51:24.400 --> 00:51:31.639
for for use, but he's not
he doesn't get mad a lot. Yeah,

660
00:51:31.719 --> 00:51:36.239
it was. It was my first
time using poles on steep mountains,

661
00:51:36.679 --> 00:51:42.079
you know, and pretty much and
but I've been a skier for many years,

662
00:51:42.119 --> 00:51:45.679
so again I'm used to poles.
Yeah, you know, there's a

663
00:51:45.800 --> 00:51:51.440
there's a core memory of corn memory. But you know, when I'm not

664
00:51:51.599 --> 00:51:53.599
concentrating, I go into a flaw. You have muscle memory, yeah,

665
00:51:55.000 --> 00:52:01.719
and Rich certainly has that. So
it's quite interesting seeing how how much extra

666
00:52:01.800 --> 00:52:06.400
effort I guess you guys were having
to put into due to just having to

667
00:52:06.519 --> 00:52:14.480
concentrate to think about it was when
it focuses you into that little bubble which

668
00:52:14.559 --> 00:52:17.719
is as far as your poles can
reach, when you should be looking You

669
00:52:17.800 --> 00:52:21.559
should be looking there, right,
You should be looking ahead, rather than

670
00:52:21.599 --> 00:52:24.320
where am I going to put this
pole? Yeah, that's the thing I

671
00:52:24.400 --> 00:52:29.079
think. Until your poles become muscle
memory, they aren't. They aren't a

672
00:52:29.159 --> 00:52:32.239
useful tool until you stop thinking about
them. And then when you do stop

673
00:52:32.280 --> 00:52:36.880
thinking about them, they make a
huge difference. I used to use when

674
00:52:36.920 --> 00:52:40.440
I used to do ultramarathons, and
they would knock minutes of my average colometer

675
00:52:40.519 --> 00:52:45.440
pace, you know, just by
having poles and way we were using them

676
00:52:45.480 --> 00:52:50.440
on the second day, it was
it was as much for agility, yes,

677
00:52:50.639 --> 00:52:53.039
as anything else. It was sort
of you come around, you you

678
00:52:53.119 --> 00:52:55.480
come around with rock. You use
it to offset that so you can keep

679
00:52:55.480 --> 00:53:00.800
the momentum into the corner, which
overall does affect your average pace. But

680
00:53:00.639 --> 00:53:05.400
there were a few times where poles
stopped me probably getting a prop of an

681
00:53:05.400 --> 00:53:07.679
ankle just with ground gave way below
below me into a bulk or something like

682
00:53:07.760 --> 00:53:12.719
that. But I sort of leaned
on the pole, not on not on

683
00:53:12.800 --> 00:53:16.599
my ankle or my ship. There
is a great tip Dave give me on

684
00:53:16.719 --> 00:53:21.400
the way down, because as we
were coming down, Dave was in the

685
00:53:21.440 --> 00:53:24.320
front at this stage and I could
see him using the poles to stop his

686
00:53:24.519 --> 00:53:30.360
momentum going forward, and I was
trying to do the same, but constantly

687
00:53:30.440 --> 00:53:32.679
going forward. And then you know, he said, oh, you have

688
00:53:32.800 --> 00:53:36.639
extended your poles for going down.
Well, yeah, of course, I

689
00:53:36.719 --> 00:53:44.760
don't know what I'm doing. Go
around the rock, yeah, longer the

690
00:53:44.800 --> 00:53:49.440
way down. Yeah, that comes
down to time on time on tool.

691
00:53:51.199 --> 00:53:54.480
Although I can't use the scratch properly
apparently, no, we did. You

692
00:53:54.559 --> 00:53:58.159
have to be showing several times and
you still get it wrong. You're an

693
00:53:58.199 --> 00:54:01.039
engineer, like right, you put
your hands the straps like this, and

694
00:54:01.079 --> 00:54:05.360
I'm and now they're wrong. But
I've just done what you've told me to

695
00:54:05.440 --> 00:54:08.199
do. You're perhaps you got that
pole. Do you know what I found?

696
00:54:08.440 --> 00:54:14.079
I found for me, I was
more comfortable not actually using the straps

697
00:54:14.480 --> 00:54:19.320
because then I could position my hand
anywhere up and down that pole, you

698
00:54:19.440 --> 00:54:22.039
know, to push me off if
the pole needed to be sure. I

699
00:54:22.119 --> 00:54:25.559
could do that. It's kind of
I know, when I'm in an almost

700
00:54:25.599 --> 00:54:30.960
a flow state, when I'm moving
across rough ground with poles. Is when

701
00:54:30.639 --> 00:54:35.079
I realized that now both of my
left hands and my right hand's holding onto

702
00:54:35.079 --> 00:54:37.320
a rock. As I'm scrambling up, and I don't remember doing it,

703
00:54:37.960 --> 00:54:40.840
I just automatically slip my hands out
of the straps past the dealer pole to

704
00:54:40.840 --> 00:54:45.320
the other hand I'm holding it midway
down. I'm climbing up onto the thing.

705
00:54:45.199 --> 00:54:50.519
It's like when you you you drive
the same route to work every day,

706
00:54:51.079 --> 00:54:52.920
and you eventually get to a point
where you're at work, and you

707
00:54:52.119 --> 00:54:55.960
can't remember anything about the journey about
how you got there. When I'm doing

708
00:54:57.039 --> 00:54:59.840
that, I know that I'm probably
in the right mental state for this,

709
00:55:00.599 --> 00:55:06.719
but it's not entirely trustworthy. The
other interesting or another interesting one for me,

710
00:55:06.800 --> 00:55:08.840
it would be to find out or
to hear from you guys, how

711
00:55:08.920 --> 00:55:15.840
your water systems expectation versus performance.
Because we all had a different version of

712
00:55:15.880 --> 00:55:22.639
the Fuilter. Unless Dave and Rich
and all that nobody he had he had

713
00:55:22.679 --> 00:55:24.559
one I already owned, but I
took a different one. They had to

714
00:55:24.599 --> 00:55:30.480
be a linked Yes, so I've
got the little ms R Trail Shots trail

715
00:55:30.519 --> 00:55:32.719
shop thing. One's like a prima
ball for an outboard motor something like that.

716
00:55:32.880 --> 00:55:40.119
Yes, And it's not very fast
and it cold up instantly the first

717
00:55:40.119 --> 00:55:45.679
time I tried using it, which
is disappointing. And it's quite a chunky

718
00:55:45.719 --> 00:55:52.800
little puddle. It's quite a peaty
little it's it's we do have a pre

719
00:55:52.960 --> 00:55:57.679
filter on it. Yeah, it's
got fine, very fine filter, so

720
00:55:57.920 --> 00:56:02.440
you're not sucking the solid straight up. And eventually once I hadn't wash that

721
00:56:02.599 --> 00:56:06.639
off and cleaned it up and it
started before me. But there was a

722
00:56:06.719 --> 00:56:12.599
lot of a lot of effort required
for not a lot of water, whereas

723
00:56:12.760 --> 00:56:16.400
watching Alistas casting in B three,
you just fill it up and then you've

724
00:56:16.440 --> 00:56:21.719
sluted it out and it uses the
pressure of you squirting the whole bottle,

725
00:56:22.039 --> 00:56:25.280
which is a lot more efficient.
Let's that you required a lot less effort

726
00:56:25.320 --> 00:56:30.719
to get the water that I needed. Yeah, we have both ptechnically had

727
00:56:30.719 --> 00:56:34.920
the same film from different companies,
didn't we Yeah, because I bought the

728
00:56:35.239 --> 00:56:42.960
patienin B three specifically for this trip. I've got a Sawyer squeeze home,

729
00:56:43.239 --> 00:56:49.239
which is dependable, but there was
a discount, a healthy discount, and

730
00:56:49.280 --> 00:56:52.960
your wife worked in an outdoors it
was there was there was good reasons behind

731
00:56:53.039 --> 00:56:58.599
getting it, but it was also
because I wanted to take a much larger

732
00:56:58.679 --> 00:57:06.000
water carrier to do can't filter,
which the cast and filter is better for.

733
00:57:07.880 --> 00:57:13.719
But yeah, that was new to
me, and it was again similar

734
00:57:14.119 --> 00:57:19.199
dark peating puddle. That was quite
a quick learning experience that actually it's not

735
00:57:19.400 --> 00:57:23.840
great in murky water, but as
a speed way of getting filtered water into

736
00:57:24.000 --> 00:57:30.880
it's it needs very equick. I
have the Platypus basically equivalent to the Sawyer

737
00:57:30.960 --> 00:57:32.840
squeeze, and there's a few different
things that have the same same system,

738
00:57:32.840 --> 00:57:37.639
where there's a drinking bladder type bag
that you fill with water, screw it

739
00:57:37.679 --> 00:57:40.400
onto the filter, put the clean
end of the filter over your bottle,

740
00:57:40.719 --> 00:57:45.000
and squeeze it out. It's one
I might use that one that's much,

741
00:57:45.199 --> 00:57:49.639
but it was just it basically was
the first one in the pile of water

742
00:57:49.679 --> 00:57:52.079
filters that came up. I mean
the lucky position where I have a box

743
00:57:52.159 --> 00:57:53.800
of water filters. So I just
went for the one at the top,

744
00:57:55.119 --> 00:58:02.719
but I was happy with it.
The maybe sighted bigger capacity for filterings,

745
00:58:02.719 --> 00:58:05.800
it will only be about a liter
at a time in the bag, so

746
00:58:06.079 --> 00:58:08.920
filling up two liters was get to
go back to the stream twice, go

747
00:58:09.039 --> 00:58:14.440
back to it twice, but I
was happy enough with it. And the

748
00:58:14.519 --> 00:58:17.159
thing with all three of our filters
we've mentioned so far, they're all grating

749
00:58:17.199 --> 00:58:21.440
the now point one microns, so
they will not filter out viruses, which

750
00:58:21.519 --> 00:58:24.599
is not really a problem here in
the UK, so we don't basically no

751
00:58:24.719 --> 00:58:29.400
viruses in our water unless you're collecting
it from downstream of a sewish treatment plant.

752
00:58:30.159 --> 00:58:37.480
But for the Highland upland water sources
it's very unlikely to be a virus

753
00:58:37.559 --> 00:58:40.480
problem in there, so those kind
of filters work well for that. We'd

754
00:58:40.519 --> 00:58:43.920
have had them boil it as well
if there was going to be a problem.

755
00:58:44.519 --> 00:58:47.239
But Chris, you had the slightly
more Yeah. So it's the pure

756
00:58:47.320 --> 00:58:52.119
hydration in line water filter, the
bigger one with the pump. Yes,

757
00:58:52.480 --> 00:58:58.159
yeah, so you've got it's like
two hundred gallon capacity, and because it's

758
00:58:58.199 --> 00:59:00.519
the pump, it will go down
to virus. I think it goes zero

759
00:59:00.599 --> 00:59:07.119
point zero three or something like.
It's really good. And my experience with

760
00:59:07.239 --> 00:59:09.440
it is from my military days.
You know, I was involved in the

761
00:59:09.599 --> 00:59:15.000
trialing of it to make sure it
could come into service. So it go

762
00:59:15.079 --> 00:59:20.760
all the way through the Institute for
Outdoor Aviation Medicine and all of that type

763
00:59:20.760 --> 00:59:23.440
of stuff. You know, it's
good enough for a typhoon piler that to

764
00:59:23.480 --> 00:59:27.360
sit on, it's good enough for
me to carry up and down, and

765
00:59:27.480 --> 00:59:31.000
it's versatile so I can take that
filter and clip it to a camelback system

766
00:59:31.280 --> 00:59:37.679
or to a gravity system. That
your confidence and it was high for me,

767
00:59:37.760 --> 00:59:39.800
you know as soon as we got
there, whereas mind being brand new

768
00:59:39.880 --> 00:59:45.199
to me, I was still you
know, I've not done that testing three

769
00:59:45.280 --> 00:59:49.440
times in ideal conditions or to try
and find out how bad it was.

770
00:59:49.840 --> 00:59:54.239
But again we had within the group, we had backup. You know.

771
00:59:54.320 --> 00:59:59.760
It was I think we all brought
it. That was a trial for us,

772
01:00:00.440 --> 01:00:04.119
but there was back up within the
great group. So yes, it

773
01:00:04.239 --> 01:00:07.360
was a little bit more heavy individually, and we could have all bought modern

774
01:00:07.440 --> 01:00:12.719
system for the group. I think
that was part of the planning process,

775
01:00:12.920 --> 01:00:15.360
was you do you and then we'll
all come together and make it work.

776
01:00:16.079 --> 01:00:20.360
Rather than we were a group.
This person's going to lead, this person's

777
01:00:20.360 --> 01:00:22.079
going to make, this person's going
to carry temples. It's person got the

778
01:00:22.159 --> 01:00:25.000
ten you know, it wasn't.
And that's that's some of the bit that

779
01:00:25.039 --> 01:00:30.079
I definitely got wrong because I didn't
just do me. I was also us

780
01:00:30.400 --> 01:00:34.519
subversively doing you as well, if
you know what I mean. Yeah,

781
01:00:36.480 --> 01:00:39.920
that was a weird thing for me
in a way because I had to remind

782
01:00:39.960 --> 01:00:44.280
myself halfway through September or at the
end of October when the trip happens,

783
01:00:45.280 --> 01:00:46.719
halfway through September, to remind myself, no, no, you're not in

784
01:00:46.840 --> 01:00:53.239
charge of these people. You've been
advited as a peer. It's peer.

785
01:00:53.400 --> 01:00:59.800
And this in hindsight, this is
a different thing for me because I've done

786
01:01:00.239 --> 01:01:04.119
fair amount of peer trips, less
so in the last ten years because more

787
01:01:04.199 --> 01:01:07.519
trips have been work and when I
go out with friends, we don't go

788
01:01:07.559 --> 01:01:09.639
into the hills, we don't go
Toto the woods, because I'm doing that

789
01:01:09.679 --> 01:01:16.760
all the time. So going out
with peers before that was generally with peers

790
01:01:17.119 --> 01:01:22.719
who were peers. In terms of
experience, I was often sort of middling

791
01:01:22.800 --> 01:01:25.360
or lowest experience in the group.
And then when I'm leading, I'm often

792
01:01:25.480 --> 01:01:30.119
the most experience in the group by
default, because you don't you don't pay

793
01:01:30.199 --> 01:01:36.400
to train somebody who knows less than
you. So for this it was I

794
01:01:36.559 --> 01:01:38.400
was able to observe. Basically,
I had all my kids, You had

795
01:01:38.440 --> 01:01:42.719
all your kids. I would have
helped with your kids if you needed it,

796
01:01:42.840 --> 01:01:45.159
but you didn't need any help.
And I wasn't in a position of

797
01:01:45.199 --> 01:01:51.280
authority or control of any type,
which meant I was able to have less

798
01:01:51.360 --> 01:01:53.320
kit and I didn't have to worry
about having little lamlets in the top of

799
01:01:53.360 --> 01:01:58.159
my pack saying Okay, your leader
is now unconscious or dying or dead.

800
01:01:58.719 --> 01:02:01.679
If this case, do this,
you know, get the standalone GPS out

801
01:02:01.719 --> 01:02:06.239
of my pack. So I don't
do this. Can you'd be surprised,

802
01:02:06.280 --> 01:02:10.159
men, because I think quietly we
were all looking to you anyway for the

803
01:02:12.039 --> 01:02:16.440
wisdom. Can You're not, whether
it was deliberate or not, because you

804
01:02:16.519 --> 01:02:21.360
are the most experienced person in the
mountains and all the rest. Even though

805
01:02:21.400 --> 01:02:24.440
we didn't put a big I am
the leader baseball cap on you. Well,

806
01:02:24.480 --> 01:02:27.800
that's the thing. It's like that, I know you have more experience,

807
01:02:27.840 --> 01:02:30.639
So I'd listened to what Yeah,
definitely apart from apart from them.

808
01:02:30.760 --> 01:02:35.400
When we were trying to find the
first track and then you slipped and first

809
01:02:35.440 --> 01:02:39.599
I told you so, Yeah,
because I said this is down here.

810
01:02:39.800 --> 01:02:43.760
Yeah, there was a lovely track
down on the river. Though, wasn't

811
01:02:43.800 --> 01:02:45.519
it enough to clime of de offense? But we walked back, we were

812
01:02:45.559 --> 01:02:50.119
back. Yeah, it's perfect.
Yeah. Simon says, do not go

813
01:02:50.199 --> 01:02:54.679
in here, this is private,
this is part of offenses. Yeah,

814
01:02:55.320 --> 01:03:00.440
but Drew said it was all right. The last it's Scottish Act. Access

815
01:03:00.480 --> 01:03:02.519
code means that even though it was
a gate, you can still go through

816
01:03:02.559 --> 01:03:06.320
it. That's why they're not allowed
to panel. They do make it very

817
01:03:06.400 --> 01:03:09.280
difficult to get through. They need
small If you ignore the sign, everything's

818
01:03:09.320 --> 01:03:17.800
possible. But that is something I
started to get an idea in that first

819
01:03:17.880 --> 01:03:25.679
morning that we weren't all in the
same place growth zone, comfort zone.

820
01:03:28.039 --> 01:03:30.400
Not no one was in panic zone, but it was it was it was

821
01:03:30.760 --> 01:03:35.679
I said, this is going to
be a stretch me my comfort zone.

822
01:03:37.000 --> 01:03:42.119
I think the difference in terrain compared
to what you'd seen before this was was

823
01:03:42.239 --> 01:03:45.679
something because I was on a fair
amount in Scotland that it's sort of Scotland

824
01:03:45.320 --> 01:03:50.760
is like the wilder, crappier bits
of Whales in terms of terrain, where

825
01:03:50.760 --> 01:03:54.440
where there's no tracks, everything's uncomfortable, everything steep. Yeah, but that's

826
01:03:54.519 --> 01:03:59.239
what most of Scotland's like, away
from the bend Nervers track and stuff like

827
01:03:59.320 --> 01:04:02.719
that. Whereas your your experience has
been a lot of it's been the lakes

828
01:04:02.760 --> 01:04:06.400
and Harbyshire and Dartmoor, which darn
was pretty wild, but it's wild and

829
01:04:06.440 --> 01:04:11.320
in a very different way. Yes, it's just a bit bleak. There's

830
01:04:11.360 --> 01:04:15.320
no massive hilt, but there's a
lot of bogs, yes, whereas there's

831
01:04:15.360 --> 01:04:19.519
more human human sign you were mentioning
to me, you know, oh,

832
01:04:19.960 --> 01:04:24.440
that's the first plane I've seen for
a while. There was no ambient sort

833
01:04:24.440 --> 01:04:27.559
of a noise, which again I
think we had snowed down. Yeah.

834
01:04:27.679 --> 01:04:31.480
You you you can't get away from
that. You have the sound of Kevin

835
01:04:31.639 --> 01:04:35.360
for Birmingham on his sports bag coming
through. It's a very different environment all

836
01:04:35.400 --> 01:04:39.920
around, and like you said,
creates. It's that tuning into the environment.

837
01:04:40.639 --> 01:04:44.360
And I've got this this thing,
not if even a theory, it's

838
01:04:44.440 --> 01:04:49.119
just a belief that if you take
the word bushcraft and bushcraft being the skills

839
01:04:49.280 --> 01:04:55.840
needed to live and work effectively in
that environment. The British bushcraft, if

840
01:04:55.880 --> 01:04:59.519
the bushes, the wild bits,
it's not a woodland in Hampshire. There's

841
01:04:59.559 --> 01:05:01.480
nothing wrong with spending time in woodland
in Hampshire. I spent a lot of

842
01:05:01.519 --> 01:05:05.119
time in woodlands in the countryside of
Northeast Wales. One of them is ansters,

843
01:05:05.880 --> 01:05:12.800
but it is not the same skill
set, is not the same mindset.

844
01:05:12.880 --> 01:05:16.159
It's not the same reliance on your
ability to read the landscape as coming

845
01:05:16.280 --> 01:05:21.159
up here. And I would say, for if using bush is the wilderness

846
01:05:21.199 --> 01:05:26.800
wilder areas of the UK, that
is places like the Northwest Highlands, where

847
01:05:28.000 --> 01:05:32.360
understanding that landscape, understanding that that
rock over there is five miles away or

848
01:05:32.400 --> 01:05:38.519
that rock over there is five hundred
yards away based on size, or what

849
01:05:38.719 --> 01:05:42.960
this wind means, what that white
hazy bit blowing in over there means that

850
01:05:43.239 --> 01:05:45.360
you're about to get to get wet
in ten minutes because it's rain coming towards

851
01:05:45.440 --> 01:05:48.199
you. Being able to read that
landscape, being able to read the water

852
01:05:48.320 --> 01:05:55.199
courses, read the angle of the
slope and know what the environment is going

853
01:05:55.280 --> 01:05:58.119
to do to your kit and what
your kit needs to do to interact with

854
01:05:58.159 --> 01:06:01.000
that environment. That is. So
that is what bushcraft is. It is

855
01:06:01.079 --> 01:06:08.239
that knowledge of knowing where you fit
in that landscape, what your equipment,

856
01:06:08.400 --> 01:06:12.039
whether it's made from the stomach of
a red deer or whether it's bought from

857
01:06:12.360 --> 01:06:16.119
Ellis Brigham, what that hit needs
to do in that environment in order for

858
01:06:16.159 --> 01:06:19.800
you to do your thing, whether
it's walk or live or hunt or whatever

859
01:06:19.880 --> 01:06:26.559
it is. It's that mental skill
set. So bushcraft isn't building things in

860
01:06:26.639 --> 01:06:29.760
the woods, despite what you do
and an instagram tells you. It is

861
01:06:30.079 --> 01:06:32.480
that inherent knowledge that you need to
live in that environment. You can call

862
01:06:32.480 --> 01:06:36.400
it field craft, you could call
it hillcraft, you could call it mountain

863
01:06:36.480 --> 01:06:41.760
craft, whatever, but bushcraft is
the sort of the search engine friendly term.

864
01:06:42.559 --> 01:06:45.639
So I think it's the trending to
them. Yeah, so there's a

865
01:06:45.719 --> 01:06:49.639
magazine on the table that I'm just
looking at them just before we start on

866
01:06:49.679 --> 01:06:56.920
the podcast that had a gleeful freemale
walker who was going up a mountain range

867
01:06:57.199 --> 01:07:00.320
very close to me, which is
a friend's farm, and this this lady

868
01:07:00.440 --> 01:07:04.800
clearly was having a great time taking
up this hill, conquering this hill.

869
01:07:05.480 --> 01:07:10.480
But to my friend Sarah, that's
her checking her sheep and she'll be doing

870
01:07:10.559 --> 01:07:14.199
that in boots and gens before taking
the kids to school. Yeah yeah,

871
01:07:14.360 --> 01:07:19.960
or probably having the kids with her. Her bushcraft is hefted to that bit

872
01:07:20.000 --> 01:07:25.719
of ground, whereas Ellen from Birmingham
or whoever she was, you know,

873
01:07:25.960 --> 01:07:30.159
that was out of her comfort zone
possibly or her kids had to enable her

874
01:07:30.199 --> 01:07:34.719
to do that, whereas she think
she thinks her kit is. But then

875
01:07:35.199 --> 01:07:41.599
when you get up onto that area
where we can and there's this is fifty

876
01:07:41.679 --> 01:07:46.440
sixty hour wins hit. It doesn't
matter who makes that kit. If your

877
01:07:46.519 --> 01:07:49.480
tent blows away, it's so late
to blaying the tent right, Yeah,

878
01:07:49.519 --> 01:07:54.559
it's your fault, whether it's two
hundred quid of Go Outdoors blowing away or

879
01:07:54.599 --> 01:07:59.159
fifty quid from Tesco or seven hundred
for MSR. It's still soarting off down

880
01:07:59.199 --> 01:08:03.360
the valley and you're now stuff in
your practice in your bushcraft without your tent,

881
01:08:03.960 --> 01:08:09.679
which is there. What's going to
kill on me first? So back

882
01:08:09.760 --> 01:08:15.399
up is a bag or survival,
but you haven't done that because it's more

883
01:08:15.479 --> 01:08:20.800
important to feather some sticks and works
because you've bought the thing and that thing's

884
01:08:20.800 --> 01:08:24.079
at the bottom of your back and
you know it's there. You are safe,

885
01:08:24.760 --> 01:08:28.000
You aren't going to die because you
have the thing and I've never opened.

886
01:08:28.239 --> 01:08:33.199
But having shown any kids doesn't stop
you getting into trouble. Having the

887
01:08:33.279 --> 01:08:40.600
right mentality and the tools in your
head will stop that. And we spoke

888
01:08:40.640 --> 01:08:46.000
about that when we did our podcast. Was the the divorcing of responsibility by

889
01:08:46.159 --> 01:08:50.960
having a named brand and endorsed brand
and all the rest. But as as

890
01:08:51.079 --> 01:08:55.399
you go back to all the time
making the decisions, you know, I

891
01:08:55.520 --> 01:08:59.960
knew halfway up that hill on day
one that I wasn't going to be going

892
01:09:00.159 --> 01:09:04.000
over the top, you know,
to try to achieve that the initial goal,

893
01:09:04.800 --> 01:09:10.600
and even you know, I was
formulating my plan to to you know,

894
01:09:10.840 --> 01:09:13.000
to fess up and say, hey, guys, I can't do this.

895
01:09:13.840 --> 01:09:17.039
But also I was then looking around
to say, how can I safely

896
01:09:17.479 --> 01:09:21.279
or you know, as safely as
possible get me because I was just planning

897
01:09:21.319 --> 01:09:26.640
on me at that time to come
back, to come back down and also

898
01:09:26.760 --> 01:09:29.960
getting ready for the big argument where
we're not going to leave you with learn

899
01:09:30.039 --> 01:09:36.760
and all this type of stuff,
But there was none matters like, well,

900
01:09:36.760 --> 01:09:41.199
I think we just put you in
misery. Nicole mckit if it wasn't

901
01:09:41.279 --> 01:09:51.920
there. Even Drew would come back
on it on the come up in his

902
01:09:53.000 --> 01:09:59.119
shorts and flip flops. Part of
that how people respond to the environment as

903
01:09:59.159 --> 01:10:02.960
well, what group dynamics arelike,
what's in the psychology of that, the

904
01:10:03.039 --> 01:10:11.319
psychology of people who are in an
environment that they thought they understood that they

905
01:10:11.359 --> 01:10:15.560
don't, or because they've got an
injury which has all sorts of effects on

906
01:10:16.520 --> 01:10:19.600
the way they can physically perform,
but also their emotional response to that.

907
01:10:19.960 --> 01:10:25.600
All of these things are what would
make a good mountain leader. These things

908
01:10:25.680 --> 01:10:30.039
do come together to make a skill
set that you can only develop by coming

909
01:10:30.079 --> 01:10:34.319
to do these things. You've got
to come out to the hills in a

910
01:10:34.439 --> 01:10:38.920
way that means that if it goes
well, you have a lovely time.

911
01:10:39.319 --> 01:10:43.520
If it goes poorly, you don't
die. And planning a trip that sits

912
01:10:43.560 --> 01:10:46.800
within those brackets best time of your
life didn't die. That's kind of the

913
01:10:46.920 --> 01:10:53.000
up and lower level. And when
I speak to people about developing their skills

914
01:10:53.399 --> 01:10:55.359
and should you go out in bad
weather, it's like, well, yes,

915
01:10:55.399 --> 01:10:59.039
you should go out in bad weather, but only in a way that

916
01:10:59.199 --> 01:11:01.399
means that it's safely. Yeah,
you are ready to turn around, you

917
01:11:01.479 --> 01:11:04.079
have the kit to deal with it. You are with somebody who can make

918
01:11:04.159 --> 01:11:09.720
that call for you, and then
you now have a data point that saying,

919
01:11:09.800 --> 01:11:13.680
well, I went out with Bill, and Bill's done a lot more

920
01:11:13.760 --> 01:11:15.199
of this than me, and Bill
said, but he held this is terrible.

921
01:11:15.239 --> 01:11:17.960
Let's turn around. I know,
yeah, I probably won't go into

922
01:11:18.000 --> 01:11:23.079
that level of condition again. But
if you go out with somebody and they

923
01:11:23.159 --> 01:11:25.479
say, well, it'll be fine
if we do this, this and this,

924
01:11:25.680 --> 01:11:28.600
or we'll get to this point and
make a decision based on this criteria,

925
01:11:28.920 --> 01:11:31.800
you now have. Okay, So
that's the thing that makes the difference.

926
01:11:31.800 --> 01:11:34.640
It's not just the wind, it's
what the wind's doing in exactly that

927
01:11:34.760 --> 01:11:39.800
one point. Yeah, because we
definitely have that. On day two,

928
01:11:40.880 --> 01:11:45.560
you guys have decided that your limitations
were going to change what you wanted to

929
01:11:45.640 --> 01:11:53.319
do. The number of us allowed
us to split the group with the capability

930
01:11:53.479 --> 01:12:00.880
between us and our confidence and my
confidence and Richard's great time in the hills

931
01:12:00.279 --> 01:12:08.159
and knowledge of whether on the hills
or on these hills more specifically rather snow

932
01:12:08.199 --> 01:12:11.359
don't know or whatever allowed us to
go, Yeah, we can do that.

933
01:12:11.520 --> 01:12:13.680
That's easy. And even if we
get up there. We can always

934
01:12:13.680 --> 01:12:17.920
turn around come back if it's all
And like you said, that knowledge of

935
01:12:18.079 --> 01:12:25.239
what weather or wind does around mountains
that can only be attained from spending time

936
01:12:25.359 --> 01:12:30.399
on task is applicable because we got
up there and it was fairly hellish I

937
01:12:30.399 --> 01:12:34.239
would say nine one where we were
because we were in this vortex and wind.

938
01:12:34.920 --> 01:12:40.000
But we got up to the top
and it was mild. It was

939
01:12:40.279 --> 01:12:44.880
we could hold a conversation ten feet
apart without without raising a pose when we

940
01:12:44.960 --> 01:12:46.680
heard you check to us and we
were halfway down that valley when you were

941
01:12:46.720 --> 01:12:51.079
waving the poles top, Yeah,
we heard that. Well we heard the

942
01:12:51.159 --> 01:12:57.119
Yale definitely. And I think the
fear of the unknown. I don't know

943
01:12:57.479 --> 01:13:02.840
how much that came into your making
for your root selection. I think,

944
01:13:02.920 --> 01:13:08.520
to me, yeah, it's relatable
experience. So you know, there's been

945
01:13:08.680 --> 01:13:13.079
cases, there's been times in the
past when you're trying to do something and

946
01:13:13.159 --> 01:13:15.439
you realize you're not going to do
it, and then it's having the you

947
01:13:15.520 --> 01:13:18.319
know, the balls to say right, enough is enough, idiot, turn

948
01:13:18.359 --> 01:13:21.159
around and go back. But also
you know, like if if I'm in

949
01:13:21.199 --> 01:13:26.399
the woods on my own in a
day's forest, maintenance. There's there's times

950
01:13:26.399 --> 01:13:29.399
out there when the breeze will get
up and the trees start to move differently,

951
01:13:29.520 --> 01:13:31.119
when you know I have to go
right, there's time to go home,

952
01:13:32.239 --> 01:13:35.119
or you can just you know,
grizz through it. The next thing,

953
01:13:35.520 --> 01:13:40.560
you've got a three term tree over
your legs or something. Yeah,

954
01:13:41.159 --> 01:13:45.279
it's just relating, and everyone can
relate from different experiences of what you do

955
01:13:45.319 --> 01:13:48.039
in your daily life to that point
where you make the decision we go on

956
01:13:48.239 --> 01:13:55.079
or go back. You're really as
good as your actual experiences. Following the

957
01:13:55.239 --> 01:13:58.039
route of somebody else, following the
guidance of somebody else in a book or

958
01:13:58.119 --> 01:14:01.119
in one of the Root Guys and
Trail Maga or something like that. You've

959
01:14:01.159 --> 01:14:03.680
got to understand that when you're picking
that up, what you're doing is picking

960
01:14:03.720 --> 01:14:09.640
up a theoretical You're picking up Okay, if I follow this theoretically, I'm

961
01:14:09.680 --> 01:14:12.800
going to have the same experience as
the person who wrote this or the person

962
01:14:13.279 --> 01:14:15.439
who did this group before me.
But the variances in your kids, the

963
01:14:15.520 --> 01:14:18.800
weather on the day, your fitness, your emotional state at that point,

964
01:14:18.880 --> 01:14:23.560
your mental health, not just the
weather the weather before. Yeah, that

965
01:14:24.039 --> 01:14:29.279
the fact how dry the ground is
the state of strange bridges likes everything range

966
01:14:29.319 --> 01:14:30.520
you And when I come up here
in winter, I'm looking at the weather

967
01:14:30.560 --> 01:14:34.399
forecast from two weeks before, because
that helps tell me what will happened in

968
01:14:34.399 --> 01:14:38.319
the terms of avalanche risk. When
you do come up here in the cell,

969
01:14:38.720 --> 01:14:42.560
it would have been a different,
you know, a whole different sort

970
01:14:42.600 --> 01:14:45.479
of get together and decision making.
If we'd got up to that campsite and

971
01:14:45.600 --> 01:14:49.880
that was just that was just black
bog. Yeah, there's no standing water

972
01:14:49.960 --> 01:14:55.079
at all because the higher we got
up those rivers and the little re entrances

973
01:14:55.119 --> 01:14:58.479
got drier and drier and drier.
The in fact we were next to that

974
01:14:58.560 --> 01:15:01.560
little lock and yeah, made campsign. Yeah, but you know that could

975
01:15:01.600 --> 01:15:06.359
have easily been dry. And then
as we climbed onto the ridge the number

976
01:15:06.439 --> 01:15:13.760
of smaller lockers that were less weigh
you know, slightly probably better catsites actually,

977
01:15:14.239 --> 01:15:17.399
which was what half an hour extra
two hundred meters of extrascent to get

978
01:15:17.439 --> 01:15:23.680
to them. Yeah, at the
end of day one, with your opinion,

979
01:15:23.920 --> 01:15:28.119
hit too heavy or legs a bit
too bit too jazzed, a bit

980
01:15:28.159 --> 01:15:33.319
too old. Yeah, thats how
it changes your making good decisions. Well,

981
01:15:33.319 --> 01:15:38.760
the good decisions. Is that was
a good decision. Well, somebody

982
01:15:38.880 --> 01:15:42.359
says, yeah, this is where
this is my turnaround point. That is

983
01:15:42.920 --> 01:15:46.840
a thousand times better than the person
who then just keels over in a place

984
01:15:46.920 --> 01:15:49.399
that's much harder to get someone out
of or they can't get to it.

985
01:15:50.239 --> 01:15:53.880
You know, I've done that on
trips before, often that when I was

986
01:15:53.920 --> 01:15:57.159
in Mountain rescue saying, I put
my hand up halfway through through a search

987
01:15:57.199 --> 01:16:00.560
and went, you know, I'm
not enough sleep for this. Basically of

988
01:16:00.720 --> 01:16:05.079
no use here whatsoever. I'm going
back to my car to sleep. It's

989
01:16:06.760 --> 01:16:11.319
having that self reflection as well as
a think important part of that, and

990
01:16:11.399 --> 01:16:14.920
that's what trips like this are value. Before we didn't we didn't achieve anything

991
01:16:14.920 --> 01:16:16.960
in the grand scheme of things.
We didn't save alive. We didn't find

992
01:16:17.239 --> 01:16:24.079
the hidden treasure of whatever. Didn't
find no. I didn't find MESSI or

993
01:16:24.840 --> 01:16:28.600
I still just modered. I didn't
see no Orthough we did find the best

994
01:16:28.640 --> 01:16:34.520
oatmeal stout I've ever drunk, which
is the the old Forge punid Art,

995
01:16:35.640 --> 01:16:40.279
which is worth a visit. And
I discovered that when I remembered I had

996
01:16:40.279 --> 01:16:43.840
a hip flask of dura in my
bag. You all became a lot more

997
01:16:43.880 --> 01:16:50.520
tolerable. We lost it was inverse. Yes, I did become what irritating

998
01:16:50.600 --> 01:16:55.920
last night? So I think they
found at Booger Traptor's door with potato crisps.

999
01:16:57.039 --> 01:17:06.439
Do not find that? Ye?
Yes I did. Yes, that's

1000
01:17:06.479 --> 01:17:11.039
gonna be bot isn't it. So
On that note, I think we'll end

1001
01:17:11.079 --> 01:17:13.560
the show, probably not gonna have
to show for this one, just because

1002
01:17:13.600 --> 01:17:17.319
I think the important information is probably
worth sharing with the public. But we

1003
01:17:17.439 --> 01:17:21.039
have something else maybe to share instead, So I'm going to cut this off.

1004
01:17:21.119 --> 01:17:25.279
Amy's going to splice in the extra
bits and hopefully the audio quality wasn't

1005
01:17:25.319 --> 01:17:28.960
too bad. Thank you, gentlemen, both for the weekend and the podcast.

1006
01:17:29.439 --> 01:17:35.039
Thank you, thank you what it
was, thank you and the accommodation.

1007
01:17:45.520 --> 01:17:50.000
Thank you for listening to this episode
of Modern Outdoor Survival from Original Outdoors.

1008
01:17:50.479 --> 01:17:55.000
If you go along to Modern Outdoor
Survival dot com, there you will

1009
01:17:55.039 --> 01:17:59.279
find links to all of the content
and everything we talked about in this episode,

1010
01:17:59.760 --> 01:18:02.520
pa links to all of the previous
episodes and the show notes for those

1011
01:18:02.560 --> 01:18:08.279
episodes. You will also find links
to our Patreon page where you can become

1012
01:18:08.319 --> 01:18:12.039
a supporter of the show and get
rid of all of those pesky adverts and

1013
01:18:12.880 --> 01:18:16.039
access to bonus extra content and stuff
that the public never gets to hear,

1014
01:18:16.199 --> 01:18:20.520
and behind the scenes stuff and a
few other things that are hidden away within

1015
01:18:20.640 --> 01:18:27.079
there. You've also got our Instagram
account which is at Modern Outdoor Survival.

1016
01:18:27.159 --> 01:18:30.840
We don't post on their huge amount, but we do post photos from things

1017
01:18:30.920 --> 01:18:33.920
that we talk about in the episodes. You will also find a link to

1018
01:18:34.000 --> 01:18:40.640
our discord platform where we have a
group for Original Outdoors as a wider community.

1019
01:18:40.840 --> 01:18:44.479
There you can meet and talk to
people and discuss things, but all

1020
01:18:44.720 --> 01:18:49.439
with the anonymity of an early two
thousand's forum or bulletin board. It's a

1021
01:18:49.560 --> 01:18:54.960
nice retro way of going about things. I'm going to leave you now with

1022
01:18:55.159 --> 01:19:01.239
our three principles of Modern Outdoor Survival
and they are one, make good decisions

1023
01:19:01.279 --> 01:19:08.800
at the right times. Number two. Prioritize training over shiny new equipment.

1024
01:19:09.479 --> 01:19:15.560
Number three, remember Instagram is not
your training provider. Bye.

